Shakespeare's Champion by Charlaine Harris

Shakespeare's Champion is the second book in Harris' Lily Bard series. It is the 4th that I have read. Somehow I got out of order on them, which is unusual, but it's not really affecting my enjoyment of them. This one does a great job of filling you in on Lily's backstory, without devoting actual time to it. Shakespeare's Champion is a little darker than the first one, with a little more of an agenda than most mysteries I read (granted, I don't read a lot.) Here's the summary from Amazon.com:

No steel magnolia, Lily Bard is one blunt, tough Southern woman--a tiny,
karate-chopping, bodybuilding dynamo who's come to Shakespeare, Arkansas, to
restart her life after a series of traumatic events just hinted at in this
second novel in Charlaine Harris's series (after Shakespeare's
Landlord). When she slips into her gym for an early morning workout and
finds Del Packard with a barbell across his throat, she doesn't think for more
than a second that it's an accident. Not when it's the third death in a couple
of months in a town hardly big enough for its own WalMart. Then the blue
broadsheets with thinly veiled hints of white supremacist activity start turning
up under the windshield wipers of every car on Main Street. Lily's a relative
newcomer to Shakespeare, but as a cleaning woman for the local landed gentry,
she's privy to many secrets that most outsiders never learn. When a handsome
stranger keeps turning up at the scene of an increasingly bizarre series of
events, including a burglary at one of her regular clients and a bombing in a
black church, she suspects he may be more than an innocent bystander. Which is
too bad, because he stirs up desires that Lily hasn't felt for any man for a
very long time. Lily Bard is a complex woman who embodies many of the
contradictions of the modern South--its dark side as well as its charm--and this
suspenseful, deftly written novel will send new fans scrambling to read its
predecessor.

Hrm. That actually summarizes it pretty well! The action is fairly fast paced, there weren't a lot (or really any) leaps of faith, or questions about why she knew more than law enforcement. I really enjoyed this one, if you like Charlaine Harris' other books, you should check these out also. I definately like them more than Aurora Teagarden, but less than Sookie Stackhouse. And best of all, all I have left is Shakespeare's Counselor (which I have at home) and I'll be all caught up on the series. Plus, they are both easy PBS credits.