When Did We Lose Harriet?

Written by Patricia Sprinkle

Narrated by Laural Merlington and Patricia H. Sprinkle

A teenage girl has been missing from her Montgomery, Alabama, home for six weeks. She may be a runaway, a crime victim, or both. What’s amazing is other people’s lack of concern. Just one person cares that she’s gone: a spunky amateur sleuth on the sunset end of sixty. Armed with razor-sharp insight, a salty wit, and tenacious faith, MacLaren Yarbrough follows a trail of clues -- a wisp of a hint, a shadow of a lie -- in search of answers to questions that come hot and fast and that grow increasingly alarming. How did a fifteen-year-old girl come across a large sum of money? Why did she hide it instead of taking it with her? Where is she now? And who is willing to kill to keep MacLaren from probing too far? Masked by Dixie charm and the scent of honeysuckle, a deadly secret lies coiled . . . one that holds the ultimate answer to the question, When Did We Lose Harriet? When Did We Lose Harriet? is the first of the MacLaren Yarbrough Mysteries, featuring plucky, sixty-some heroine MacLaren Yarbrough. Look for further books in this series in the near future.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zondervan
• Release date: Dec 6, 2011
• ISBN: 9780310876397

Patricia Sprinkle

Patricia H. Sprinkle is a freelance writer whose nonfiction books include the companion to this volume, Children Who Do Too Little. She is also a best-selling mystery writer and an active member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America. She is a frequent speaker at seminars and women’s conferences and lives in Miami with her husband. They have two grown children.

Reviews for When Did We Lose Harriet?

[cyderry · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the second book by Patricia Sprinkle that I have read. (Who invited the Dead Man? was the third in this series I read first.) What catches me is her titles - When did we lose Harriet? Harriet somehow is the central character of this mystery but we only see her in the first two chapters. The remainder of the story has MacLaren Yarbrough searching for this young girl she has never met. Mac comes home to Montgomery Alabama because her baby brother, Jake (late 50's) has a heart attack and is being ornery about having surgery. Mac is called upon to take his place at the teen center where she discovers a library book filled with $3000 cash. She determines that it belongs to a girl named Harriet and sets out to return them to the owner. Along the way she finds person after person, who can't even remember the last time that they saw Harriet and she is amazed at their lack of concern for someone that they are responsible for. Mac manages throughout her search to find out where Harriet got the money, what she wanted to do with the money, and eventually where to find Harriet. This is an excellently written mystery that confounds the reader until the very end. All the clues are subtly distributed throughout. I will definitely be looking for the next in the series.