Only the Good

ONLY THE GOOD: Susan Brooks loves her great-aunt Ella, whose kindly nature is constantly put to the test by the rest of the family. But now matriarchal Aunt Ella lies sick in bed, and has called the family together to make an announcement. A recent stroke has postponed her revelation, however, while the family gathers around. There is Susan’s domineering cousin Bea and her too-handsome husband Tony; the Starrs, Will and Mabel, and their two kids; and out of the blue, Susan’s mother Amelia, who had left her in the care of Aunt Ella at birth and whom she had never met. They all have their secrets. Then Aunt Ella’s trusted maid, Parsons, disappears. After Susan discovers her murdered body the next day, Sheriff Atwood is called in. One thing becomes clear to him right away… this is a family that protects its secrets well. Unfortunately, it also becomes obvious that his likeliest suspect is Susan herself!

Mary Garden Collins was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on January 14, 1908. Her family moved to Berkeley, California, when she was three, where she went to public school, and eventually attended Miss Burke’s School in San Francisco as well as the University of California. In 1938, after selling a few fiction stories to the magazine The Passing Show, she decided to change her focus to mysteries. Collins wrote six mystery novels between 1941 and 1949, all set in the San Francisco area, beginning with The Fog Comes published by Scribner’s. Author Gertrude Atherton once described Collins as “tall and slender, has charming manners and knows how to dress." After her sixth novel, she retired from writing to devote herself to child-rearing and managing the household. She died from emphysema in 1979.