I was looking for a book set in Italy and found Murder in Tuscany. It was fun and I ended up listening to the first four in the series, one right after the other, from the library.
Retired DCI Dan Armstrong is a fish out of water at a writing retreat in Tuscany. Yes, he's an aspiring writer, but definitely not of erotica. Then someone is killed and he's helping the local police solve the crime between writing classes and sight-seeing. I loved the setting, a large villa in the Italian hills. We have a closed circle of suspects, several of whom are hiding secrets. Dan is a bit sexist and a bit mopey, but it's a quick read and the dead guy was not a good person, by any stretch of the imagination.
Dan is staying in Tuscany, has a house and a dog and everything. He agrees to help the local chief and his friend Virgilio catch the killer,...
One more Christie then I'll move on to other books for a while. This time around our detective is Superintendent Battle. While he's not as memorable as Poirot or Marple, he's a good guy and a solid detective.
The story starts with a variety of seemingly unrelated events. In the prologue, would-be murderer is plotting out a murder right down to the last detail. But then we meet a schoolgirl, Battle's daughter, who is accused of theft at school, and we hear the story of a man who attempted suicide but was saved and has found a new job, but not happiness. Then there's the tennis player who is staying at his benefactress' seaside home with his wife - and his ex-wife. Tensions are elevated and murder becomes inevitable.
We know a lot about the characters before the actual murder takes place, but that didn't help me solve it....
A couple of caveats: this is the first book by Kingfisher I've read and I'm a sucker for fairytale retellings, even if I don't read enough of them.
In this loose retelling of the Snow White story. We have Snow White, of course, apples, and mirrors, but no dwarves. Our main character is a healer, Anya, a poisons expert who is summoned by the King to discover how Snow is being slowly poisoned. Anya, of course, has no choice but to go. Anya is essentially a spinster who has devoted her life to her studies, made possible thanks for her father being a wealthy merchant. She's smart but her discussion of poisons and poisonous plants tends to be a bit much for people in social situations. Anya is aided in her investigation by two of the royal guards, one of whom is a potential love interest, and a talking cat, who is just as haughty as you might expect. .
I...
The Fatal Flying Affair is the first in the series that I've picked up, but it worked fine without having read the previous installments. Lady Hardcastle's brother, Harry, who works for the Secret Service Bureau, stops by with an assignment. He wants Emily and her maid/best friend, Florence, to look into the death of a pilot who was testing a parachute and to find the person who is leaking top secret intelligence. Harry believes airplanes are going to have major military
I just didn't love this one. The banter felt a bit too clever, if that makes sense, and I didn't care about the solution to the mystery. The village talent show was fun, but I'm not sure I'll pick up another in the series....
Fourteen years ago Natalie Grove found her older sister, Sarah, dead in a lily pond at Castle Vyne. The murderer was never caught and now Natalie, a best-selling author, has written a book based on the mystery. She wants to find the truth about what happened to Sarah. If you've read and enjoyed Marley's other English Village Mysteries, this one, while it takes place in the same area, happens before the other book and features different characters. I thought I might find that disappointing, but I thoroughly enjoyed this one. The new characters are fully developed, if not all that likeable, and the setting still feels like a claustrophobic small town.
Natalie has certainly stirred a hornet's nest by redrawing attention to her sister's death. There are so many twists here. The town, her friends, her family are all holding on to major secrets, and just when you have some idea of what's going on, there's another surprise. It kept me...
I love a good theater mystery. This time around, Perry is paying Algernon in an amateur production of The Importance of Being Earnest. Theaters are one of my favorite mystery settings, by the way. Actors are usually fabulously dramatic and I like the glimpses behind the curtains. But, this being the 12th Right Royal Cozy Investigation, of course someone ends up dead- Noel, the actor playing Jack. The police are stretched thin and ask for Bea and Perry's help. This one does work as a stand alone, but they are all such fun characters that really you should read some of the others too.
The whole gang gets to work on the case. Perry has insider info from being on the cast and Bea sits in on the police's interviews. Simon, Perry's husband/former detective/crime writer/chef, and Rich, Bea's fiancé/police superintendent, add the professional perspective, as always. I like how everyone works together so well. And of course Daisy, Bea's...
