Shakespeare's Landlord

I've read three different series from Harris, and based on the first part Lily Bard doesn't really stand out. She has the same ridiculous fixation of body hair and constant judgement of other women as Sookie does.

Describing poc by what shade of food/drink their skin was was pretty cringe, and I felt it striking that the first black person mentioned was a trash collector. Yikes. I'll give it some slack since the first publishing was in 1996, but it sure has not aged well.

Not sure if I'm interested to read more, the mystery wasn't that great, although I appreciate that the reader had all the same details as the character did! The chief of police really gave Lily way too much leeway to seem legit.

It is set in Shakespeare, Arkansas. The main character Lily Bard is a housecleaner and errand person etc. She will clean just about anything you ask her to clean including one client's dog. She has a mysterious background of which you do find out about in the book. She sees someone using her garbage cart to carry something out and goes to investigate and finds the body of the Landlord who also lives in her building. She gets unwanted attention from the police. She does eventually help solve the murder.

Didn't enjoy it as much as the author's Sookie series, but liked it enough to carry on with reading the rest of the books in the series.

Reread for a reading challenge and I found after 14 years I still love Lily Bard!