Marilyn's Mystery Reads

Archive for May, 2025

Death at a Highland Wedding is the fourth mystery in the Rip Through Time series, books that take readers from today’s world to 19th-century Scotland.  As the author explains in the book’s introduction, Mallory Atkinson, a police detective in Vancouver, is visiting her grandmother in Edinburgh when she is attacked on a dark street.  When she regains consciousness, she is Catriona Mitchell, a 19-year-old housemaid in the home of Dr. Duncan Gray, a doctor and surgeon.

In this latest installment, Mallory, Gray, Gray’s sister Isla, and Edinburgh Police Detective Hugh McCreadie are on their way to the wedding of the men’s friend.  There’s tension during the trip as they travel, as McCreadie had been engaged to the sister of the groom several years earlier.  He had ended their relationship, something that simply isn’t done among their crowd, and he and Violet have not seen each other since.

The upcoming marriage, as is typical among the well-to-do gentry of the time, is not quite a love match; rather it is more like the joining of two families that is meant to keep their lands and finances intact for the following generations.  When Mallory meets the groom, Archie Cranston, she is less than charmed, believing he is an arrogant, pompous individual, an impression he does nothing to alter for the rest of the first evening they’re at his hunting lodge.  But she very much likes his fiancée Fiona, believing that Archie has definitely gotten the better of the bargain.

The last official member of the wedding party is another school chum of the groom’s, Ezra Sinclair.  He is the groom’s best man, an individual described by the others who know him as a kind, smart, helpful person, which makes Mallory wonder why he never married.  Then, two mornings after Mallory and her friends arrive, they are walking through the woods of the Cranston estate and spot a body on the ground.  It’s wearing the long dark coat that belongs to Archie, but when they get closer they realize it’s Ezra.

Kelley Armstrong is an extremely prolific author, and I’ve reviewed several of her mysteries on my blog.  In the Rip Through Time series, she skillfully takes readers back 150 years, imagining Mallory’s difficulties in trying to transition from life in 21st-century Canada to life in 19th-century Scotland.  Only a handful of people know her secret, and she wants to keep it that way.

Death at a Highland Wedding is the fourth novel featuring Mallory, and for those who have read the previous books, it’s becoming clear that the protagonist is now “at home” in her new incarnation and has settled into Edinburgh and her position as a housemaid/assistant to Duncan Gray.  The author has skillfully woven together the two strands of the protagonist’s life into a fascinating series.

You can read more about the author at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novel.

When I reviewed Nilima Rao’s first novel, A Disappearance in Fiji two years ago, I was delighted to learn about a country I was unfamiliar with.  Returning to that island nation with A Shipwreck in Fiji, set in 1915, I found it an even more intriguing story.  Readers can’t possibly visit every country in the world, but mysteries can take us everywhere.

Sergeant Akal Singh is the protagonist of the series, an ethnic Indian who had been on the Hong Kong police force before an innocent, although mischaracterized, relationship with a white woman forced his supervisors to send him out of the country.  He is now a member of the Fiji police force, based in the nation’s capital Suva, trying to rebuild his life and reputation and return to Hong Kong.

However, his less-than-supportive superior, Inspector-General Jonathan Thurstrom, has other plans for Akal.  He tells the sergeant that he is to escort two English women to the small island of Ovalau as a favor to the editor of the Fiji Times.  When Akal demurs, saying he’s never been there and has no knowledge of it, he discovers that Ovalau native Constable Taviti Tukana will also be going, partly to guide Akal and the women and partly to see his uncle, an important tribal chief on the island.

In addition to chaperoning Mary Clancy and her niece Katherine Murray, Akal is told to keep a lookout for a group of Germans who are allegedly on the island.  Thurstrom, along with Akal and Taviti, is incredulous about the report headquarters received, saying that there’s no way any Germans would be on Ovalau; what would they be doing there, thousands of miles from the fighting in Europe?  But given how quickly gossip can become “facts” and lead to hysteria among the island’s population, Akal is told to find and shut down the source of this information, false though it is.

As well, Akal is told to keep an eye on Constable Kumar, new to the Ovalau force, who is “wet behind the ears” and apparently unable to stop the rumors about the Germans.  With Taviti dealing with his uncle’s insistence that he return to Ovalau and prepare to be chief upon his uncle’s death, Atal and Taviti will be kept busy, especially since they find a murdered man almost upon their arrival.

Akal, Taviti, Katherine, and Mary arrive in Levuka, Ovalau’s capital; Akal and Taviti’s plan is to first talk to the person who reported the alleged German landing party.  They’re too late, however; Sanjay Lal has been murdered, his shop ransacked, and although Lal wasn’t popular with the Levuka community, there doesn’t appear anyone who benefits from his death.

Nilima Rao, a self-described “culturally confused” person who is a Fijian Indian Australian woman, has written an excellent second volume in this series.  The characters are realistic, the setting is beautifully described, and the plot will keep readers mystified until the novel’s end.  To her I say vanaka vaka levu (thank you very much).

You can read more about Ms. Rao at various sites on the web.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novel.

There’s a huge divide in Purity, Maine between the year-round residents and the summer people.  Many citizens of the small town have family who have lived in Purity for generations, doing jobs for the summer people in order to earn enough money to keep them going through the long winter months–painting, carpentry, working at the grocery store and bar–providing services and goods that the visitors need but don’t want to do or can’t do.  In general, relations are peaceful between the two groups, if not friendly, but there is always an undercurrent of past incidents and resentments.

In her second thriller of The Spy Coast series, Tess Gerritsen brings back Maggie Bird and her friends, all retired CIA agents.  The wealthy Conover family is returning to Purity, their summer home for decades, to follow the wishes of the family’s patriarch and scatter his ashes there.  The family now consists of Elizabeth, mother to Ethan and Colin, and their wives and children.

Ethan and Susan have been married for two years, and it’s the first time Susan and her daughter Zoe have been to Purity.  Although the Conovers’ residence has been described to her as a cottage, Susan is stunned by its size, its four chimneys, and the multiple gables set back from Maiden Pond on a huge lawn.

When Susan asks her husband why he doesn’t seem overjoyed to return here, Ethan tells her that his memories of Purity are not as happy as his brother’s, that he was always the child on the outside while Colin was king of the hill.  Susan reassures him that he belongs here, that he’s family, and that they will all have a wonderful time together.  But it doesn’t work out that way.

One of the townspeople is Reuben Tarkin, a recluse who lives across the lake from the Conovers.  His late father was one of the people who did odd jobs for the summer residents until the horrific day when Sam Tarkin plowed his truck into a small crowd, killing three people plus the policeman who came to help.  Reuben Tarkin has been a pariah in Purity ever since.

On the second day of their vacation, Zoe Conover goes for a swim in Maiden Pond.  She returns to the cottage for a brief moment to tell her stepfather that she met a girl at the pond and is going with her to the girl’s house to see her cows.  That’s the only information that her family is able to give Jo Thibodeau, the town’s acting chief of police, after Zoe’s disappearance, but it’s enough for Jo to know where the girl had been.

Zoe’s new friend is Callie Yount, the granddaughter of Luther.  Luther is an ex-college professor who now is a farmer and somewhat of a hermit.  Luther comes to Maggie to tell her that he gave Zoe a ride back to the pond after she and Callie spent some time together; then he drove away to do some errands.  Thus he was the last person to admit being with Zoe before her disappearance.  Now he’s the prime suspect.

The Summer Guests is another outstanding mystery by a master of the genre.  The plot is riveting, the characters realistic, and the setting evokes both the idyllic “The Way Life Should Be” unofficial motto of the Pine Tree state and the not-unfamiliar confrontations between the year-rounders and the summer visitors.

You can read more about Tess Gerritsen at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novel.

Returning to the Navajo Nation and spending time with Bernadette Manuelito and Jim Chee is always a delight.  Readers will enjoy their company as they work together to solve both criminal cases and family issues.

The big news on the reservation is the upcoming visit of a federal dignitary.  No one is quite certain who the visitor is, but the Navajo Tribal Police will certainly be involved, and that means Bernie and Jim will play a part.  While they are waiting for more information, other issues arise.

As the novel opens, a teenaged boy is running past a uranium disposal site, a location that is off-limits due to the radioactivity that is still present years after the area was abandoned by a mining company.  Although the area is fenced off, with warning signs on it to keep people away, the boy goes closer and runs through the opening in the fence.  At first he sees only a brown cowboy hat on the ground, but a second look shows him a bruised and bloody face under the hat.

Darleen, Bernie’s younger sister, is studying for her nursing degree and working as a home health aide as well.  One of her clients, Melia Raymond, isn’t home when Darleen makes her scheduled visit, and Mrs. Raymond’s daughter, who lives nearby, doesn’t know where her mother is.  Unbeknown to anyone, Mrs. Raymond and her teenaged grandson Droid are en route to the Best Way Rehabilitation Center in Phoenix, allegedly a center for people with alcohol or drug addictions.  Droid hears about the group a day or two earlier and wants to conquer his drinking problem before it gets totally out of hand.

Mrs. Raymond, however, is suspicious when the van comes to her house to take Droid away.  It almost sounds too good to be true, she thinks, with free lodging, food, and counseling available, but her grandson is adamant about going, so she decides to go with him, signing the form that says she has a drinking problem so that she can keep an eye on Droid.  Thus they both leave home, telling no one where they’re going or for how long.

A phone call comes into the police station about a group called the Citizens United to Save the Planet, or CUSP.  They’re holding a revival meeting on the land belonging to Mr. and Mrs. Yazzee, and although they have permission for the meeting, they are building a sweat lodge explicitly against the couple’s wishes.  Talking to some of the men involved in CUSP, Bernie doesn’t like the answers she’s getting from them and their constant references to their Leader, who receives his directions from The Great Beyond.

Adding to these issues, Bernie and Darleen’s mother continues her decline into dementia, and it’s only due to the assistance of neighbors and friends that the sisters are able to care for her.  But, Bernie wonders, how much longer can she continue on her career path as a police officer and be there for her mother at the same time.  It’s a lot to manage.

Anne Hillerman has written another fascinating mystery set in the Navajo Nation, featuring two of my favorite fictional characters.  You can read more about her at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novel.

Have you ever wanted to be “a fly on the wall” and eavesdrop on the conversations of someone you admire?  If so, Marie Benedict’s The Queens of Crime is perfect for you.

The novel opens in 1931, the year The Detection Club was founded in London.  Dorothy L. Sayers, author of the mysteries featuring Lord Peter Wimsey, was the impetus behind the Club, which she decided was needed to bring mysteries and crime novels out of the genre category reviewers put them in and treat them as literature.

G. K. Chesterton of Father Brown fame was installed as president, and he shared with Dorothy a feeling that some members voiced that having an “abundance of women” in its membership might be seen negatively by the more serious reviewers they are trying to reach.  The only two women who are deemed to be appropriate to be members are Dorothy and Agatha Christie.

Needless to say, this roused Dorothy’s ire and now Agatha’s as she learns of it.  Dorothy develops a plan to invite three other female mystery authors to join the two of them and fight for their inclusion in the Detection Club.  Thus there are now five women who are working together:  Dorothy and Agatha; Baroness Emma Orczy, Hungarian-born noblewoman and author of the Scarlet Pimpernel novels; Ngaio Marsh, who hails from New Zealand and writes about Inspector Roderick Allyn; and Margery Allingham, author of the Albert Campion novels.

Telling the three women that individually they cannot breach the walls of the Club or the literary journals they would like to review their novels, Dorothy suggests “banding together in a club of our own making and infiltrating the ranks of the Detection Club as a group.”  Not surprisingly, they all think it’s an excellent idea.

Then all five women authors are admitted to the Detection Club, but they cannot help being aware of the reluctance of some of the male members to their inclusion.  Then Dorothy broaches another idea.  There is an unsolved case, the recent disappearance of a young English woman on an overnight trip to France with a friend.  If the five women can discover what happened to the missing woman, the male authors will have to accept them on equal terms.

May Daniels entered a washroom while she and Celia McCarthy were waiting for the ferry to bring them home, and although Celia waited  for several minutes, she never saw her friend leave the bathroom.  May simply vanished into thin air from a small room with no windows and only one door.  Now, after several months, her body has been found, but neither the Sûreté nor Scotland Yard has any suspects.  This is a perfect opportunity, the five queens agree, to show the men of the Detection Club their worth and importance in the literary world–they will solve the crime.

Marie Benedict has written another outstanding work of historical fiction, following in the footsteps of Her Hidden Genius (scientist Rosalind Franklin), The Other Einstein (Mileva Einstein, Albert’s first wife), and The Only Woman in the Room (Hedy Lamarr).  Ms. Benedict clearly shows the different personalities of the five women authors and brings readers into the literary world of England in the period between the world wars.

You can read more about Marie Benedict at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novel.