Cathy C. (cathyskye) -
Death Comes to Marlow is a fun, light read for those who love quirky characters and cleverly constructed puzzles. The three members of the Marlow Murder Club are sure to keep readers smiling. Septuagenarian Judith Potts is a skinny-dipping, whiskey-loving crossword author who loves solving a good puzzle and being in charge. Her two companions-- Becks the vicar's wife and Suzie the dogwalker-- sometimes chafe at Judith's take-charge attitude. Still, after what happened in The Marlow Murder Club, they've come to realize that they've got a talent for solving mysteries, too, so they're willing to put up with a bit of bossiness.
Their contact in the local police department, DS Tanika Malik, has had a bit of a demotion. Her boss is back from sick leave and doesn't approve of how she stole the spotlight from him while he was gone. He declares Sir Peter Bailey's death a suicide and tells Tanika to catalog the evidence and keep her nose out of the investigation (not that there really is one). How she and the Marlow Murder Club find ways to work together to solve the mystery is one of the best parts of the book.
Death Comes to Marlow has a very cleverly constructed mystery containing a locked room murder in a country house and a missing will, but that's not all. There's also the mystery surrounding secret messages contained in the local newspaper's weekly crossword puzzles as well as Becks' strange behavior that has Judith and Suzie worried.
If there was any drawback to this second book in the series, it was the time it took for the Christie-esque get-all-the-suspects-in-the-same-room reveal. It took way too long, and I kept wanting to tell Judith to cut to the chase and stop showing off. How long did it seem? The reveal alone seemed to take up three hundred pages in a two hundred eighty-eight-page book. That's how long. I remember feeling a bit the same way when I read The Marlow Murder Club, but this second book went to all new heights. As delightful as the characters are in this series, the glacial reveal may put me off reading any future books, more's the pity.
Their contact in the local police department, DS Tanika Malik, has had a bit of a demotion. Her boss is back from sick leave and doesn't approve of how she stole the spotlight from him while he was gone. He declares Sir Peter Bailey's death a suicide and tells Tanika to catalog the evidence and keep her nose out of the investigation (not that there really is one). How she and the Marlow Murder Club find ways to work together to solve the mystery is one of the best parts of the book.
Death Comes to Marlow has a very cleverly constructed mystery containing a locked room murder in a country house and a missing will, but that's not all. There's also the mystery surrounding secret messages contained in the local newspaper's weekly crossword puzzles as well as Becks' strange behavior that has Judith and Suzie worried.
If there was any drawback to this second book in the series, it was the time it took for the Christie-esque get-all-the-suspects-in-the-same-room reveal. It took way too long, and I kept wanting to tell Judith to cut to the chase and stop showing off. How long did it seem? The reveal alone seemed to take up three hundred pages in a two hundred eighty-eight-page book. That's how long. I remember feeling a bit the same way when I read The Marlow Murder Club, but this second book went to all new heights. As delightful as the characters are in this series, the glacial reveal may put me off reading any future books, more's the pity.
