Lost in the storm

Even a hurricane can't blow enough life into Miss Julia Weathers the Storm (2017) by Ann B. Ross to make it as eventful or as interesting as most of the other entries in this long and usually amusing series.

Virtually all of the major continuing characters are guests of Sam and Julia when they rent a large house along the Atlantic for a few days. Lillian, Julia's longtime maid, stays behind to have foot surgery, but they take along Latisha, Lillian's granddaughter. Also along is LuAnne, Julia's annoying friend, who is convinced her husband, Leonard, is seeing another woman. She will talk about nothing else, while at the same time worrying that everyone else knows about her problems.

After they are at the beach for a few days, Hurricane Marty changes course suddenly and forces their evacuation, though not before some money, perhaps thrown overboard by smugglers intercepted by the Coast Guard, washes up on the shore.

Julia and her friends don't find any of the money, yet still they are followed back home by three people in a black van who seemed to be particularly interested in Latisha.

The ending of this installment in the series proves quite exciting, yet the buildup gets a bit tedious. There is too much of we-did-this and then we-did-that and then we-did-something-else. Mostly this is routine stuff, not what one reads these books to discover. The hurricane amounts to little more than an inconvenience, and LuAnne's problems with her husband are never even fully resolved. The ending is terrific; the problem is just getting there.

So unless you are fan enough to want to read every book in the Miss Julia series, this would be a good one to skip.