Murder at Longbourn by Tracy Kiely

Tracy Kiely's "Murder at Longbourn" is an excellent first mystery novel.  It will be of particulary interest to the cozy-lovers among the mystery reading set.

The sleuth is newspaper reporter (fact-checker, actually) Elizabeth Parker, who goes to Cape Cod to assist her Aunt Winnie at the aunt's B and B for a mystery dinner.  Things heat up quickly when a guest is shot and it becomes apparent that the mystery play is being used as a cover for murder. Parker pits herself against a police detective who seems bent on fitting the evidence to point toward Aunt Winnie as the prime suspect.

While Kiely presents a fairly conventional cozy, she never lets it get too predictable nor the characters too stereotypical.  For these reasons, I found it hard to put the book down once I started it and I polished it off in a couple of holiday weekend sittings.

I look forward to more Elizabeth Parker mysteries, with or without the B and B setting.

Liz Nichols 

Oolong Dead by Laura Childs

This is the tenth in the Tea Shop Mysteries series. Childs is also the author of the Scrapbooking Mysteries and the new Cackleberry Club Mysteries. I've read samplings of the Scrapbooking series, set in New Orleans, but this is the first time I've picked up one of Childs' Tea Shop Mysteries. I've been missing out.

For one the setting for this charming series is Charleston, SC, one of the world's most beautiful and atmospheric cities. Childs does a terrific job of weaving in Charleston locations and lore in this novel, and I'm sure the same is true of the earlier ones. Secondly, her characters are as likable and interesting as the setting. Third, I happen to be a tea lover, so I can relate to issues of running the Indigo Tea Shop and making the tea, scones and tea sandwiches featured in the book. The main character, Theodosia Browning, is likable and interesting.

I can't say that the plot is all that original or believable. In fact, it is quite contrived. But the characters and description of the location make up for it in a way and I was compelled to read the book in only a couple of sittings.

I plan on checking out more in the Tea Shop series and drinking in a little more Charleston atmosphere.

Liz Nichols

"A Royal Pain" by Rhys Bowen

One of my favorite new series Rhys Bowen's "A Royal Spyness Mystery" featuring the Lady Georgiana Rannock. In this second of the series our heroine is saddled with entertaining a royal princess from Bavaria at the Queen's behest. The Queen hopes that this young royal, who has just come out of convent school, will attract the attention of her son, David, and get him out of the clutches of Wallace Simpson. (Well, we know how successful that was.)

I like novels set in this particular period in history. With the depression and political upheaval in Europe, there's lots to add to the backdrop of this story. The first in the series concentrated a great deal on the mores of post-Victorian England. While this book continues to focus on the differences between the classes in Britain, it adds the political intrigue of the rise of communism and facism to the plot of this book.

A jolly good read for those who like English cozys and Rhys Bowen's work.

Liz Nichols