★★★★★ The Swing Time Soda Emporium makes no pretensions of being anything other than a literary coming-of-age story. Though a murder has been committed by a person or persons unknown, the novel is not a whodunnit mystery. And though the victim subsequently returns as a ghost, it is not a spine-tingling chiller-diller. Search how you will, you'll find no car chases or gravity-defying martial arts.

The book is an adult-level, coming-of-age story set in small-town America during the 1940s. It follows a coterie of friends from kindergarten through college, marriage, and beyond.

1. Poppy Jablonsky is the sort of girl who makes you want to kick off your shoes and join her in the creek panning for gold with a broken dinner plate or whatever deviltry she happens to be into. The acknowledged leader of the group, she collects broken friends and puts them back together. And death will not absolve her of her responsibilities.

2. Swing dancing queen, Cinderella Killian, ignored by her parents, has adopted Sly Willy James, proprietor of The Swing Time, as a surrogate father. If you annoy her, she might dunk your head in the thunder mug and flush.

3. Trixie Brindle, a sex kitten and abuse victim, just needs a family to call her own. She'll never make it through nursing school without Poppy's help. And until she meets her Doctor Lotsa-Bucks, she'll rely on The Bare-Ass Society.

4. Awkward and inept Throckmorton Dalrymple Pennington-Jones admires the way the French gargle their Rs and snort vowels through their noses. But he'll be an English major by default. Now how will he find his niche? Where are the square holes fit for square pegs? And what will he do if he has to do without Poppy, the girl he has loved since kindergarten?