Murder as a Second Language by Joan Hess

A Claire Malloy mystery.  I like the character of Claire Malloy but I'm not fond of the personalities of her daughter or the young man that works at her bookshop.   This was not one of my favorite story lines, but still worth reading.  It kept me involved enough to keep trying to figure out 'who done it'.   I like Joan H's writing and look forward to the next one. 

Claire Malloy—now a married woman of leisure—tries her hand at volunteering, but instead lands her right in the middle of another murder investigation.  Longtime bookseller and single mother, Claire Malloy has recently married her long term beau and moved out of her less than opulent apartment into a sprawling, newly remodeled house.  Her daughter, Caron, is making plans for college. All of which leaves Claire with something she hasn't had in quite a while: spare time. When her attempts to learn French cooking start getting "mixed" reviews, she agrees to help Caron and her best friend Inez in fluffing up their college applications by volunteering as an ESL tutor with the Farberville Literacy Council.  But her modest effort to give back quickly becomes a nightmare when she’s railroaded onto the Board of Directors of the troubled nonprofit. Vandalism, accusations of embezzlement, epic budget problems, and a cacophony of heavily-accented English speakers are just the tip of the iceberg. Just as she decides that it might be best to extricate herself, Claire gets a frantic call from her husband, Deputy Chief Peter Rosen. One of the students, an older Russian woman named Ludmilla, famed for her unpleasantness, has been murdered in the offices of the Farberville Literary Council. For the first time ever, Peter actually asks Claire for her help.