Death in the Highlands
Fliss Chester
312 pages
Bookouture
published June 22, 2023
About the book
There’s a dangerous killer lurking by this loch… and only canny Cressida can track them down.
Scotland, June 1925.Socialite Cressida Fawcett has been invited to cast her interior design eye over the Stirling family’s new seat, Ayrton Castle, up in the Scottish Highlands. Thrilled to be spending the summer at the historic estate, Cressida fills her suitcase with this season’s hunting jackets – and some tartan for her little pug Ruby, of course!
But before the party is ready to tramp through the glens, shocking news puts paid to their plans. Hamish Glenkirk, former owner of Ayrton, has been found dead inside a turret room of the castle. The door was bolted from the inside, and the room is three storeys up, surrounded by impenetrable stone walls… How did the murderer get in? And out?
With Detective Andrews of Scotland Yard at least a day’s journey away, Cressida knows she needs to get to the bottom of this case – and fast. There’s no end of suspects among the hunting party. Could it be the local doctor whose wife left him for a fling with the now-dead laird? Or is the gamekeeper hiding secrets under his kilt?
Just as Cressida is closing in on the truth, a blood-curdling scream echoes through the mist. Another member of the party, and one of the suspects, has been shot. With a wee dram in hand, can Cressida find the killer before the bagpipes play for another victim?
An unputdownable and gripping cozy mystery which fans of Agatha Christie, T.E. Kinsey and Lee Strauss will love.
My Review
I always tease that I would not hang out with these amateur sleuths that keep finding bodies, but I’m happy to read about them. This is book three in the Cressida Fawcett series. She’s a socialite that keeps ending up in the wrong place. Or maybe the right place since she keeps solving the cases. I love reading the next installment of the series as there aren’t many cozy historical series I follow. The author does such a good job of setting the era. I am fan of the characters, including Cressida, her pug and her best friend Dotty. I am also a fan of DCI Andrews, but he is missing through a good part of this book.
This one also has one of my favorite elements, a locked room death. A man is found dead in a room locked from the inside. The fun with the locked room cases is you need to figure out the how, the why and the who. And in this installment, there is no shortage of suspects, as the deceased was not very well liked. Another castle, another murder and another time Cressida goes meddling in the case and puts herself in danger.
The book is fast paced, fun and entertaining. I know weird words for a murder mystery, right, but seriously, I like the charm of this series. If you like amateur sleuths and the 1920s, you need to read this series.
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