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Every First Saturday is the kind of regional Southern novel that gets shelved in mystery sections because the publisher needed a category and that reads more like a Lee Smith short story than a Lawrence Block one. The setting is a small Georgia town and the title refers to the once-a-month sale day on the courthouse square that the whole community attends.
Bobby Jaye Allen writes the town with the affection of someone who knows its real economy. The mystery, when it arrives, involves a dispute over a deceased farmer's estate and a young woman who came back from Atlanta with a child and not enough explanation. The procedural beats are gentle. The character work carries the book.
Three stars. Recommended to readers who like Southern regional fiction. Not a puzzle for puzzle-mystery readers, but a genuine pleasure on its own terms.
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