That Way Murder Lies : A Mitchell and Markby Mystery (Meredith Mitchell & Det. Super)

Rating:
Summary: delightful English cozy
Review: Meredith Mitchell is elated to see her friend Toby Smythe, temporarily home from overseas assignment, for the first time in a long time. However, Toby is not here on a friendship renewal visit. He needs a favor, but not from Meredith. Toby's relative Alison Jenner needs help as someone has been sending her hate mail that implies that she murdered her Aunt Freida Kemp over two decades ago; a crime that she was acquitted of doing by a court of law and never solved. She hopes that Toby can get Meredith's fiancé Detective Superintendent Alan Markby to investigate who the loathing pen pal is.

Markby wants to tell his beloved no as he dislikes Toby, and can rationalize that he is preoccupied by the upcoming wedding. However, he meets Alison, her spouse Jenner, and his daughter Fiona. Before he can follow up, someone murders Fiona. Though the cause of death is different from the Kemp killing the similar crime scenes make the murder seem somewhat like a copy cat first homicide. Markby ably assisted by new team member Jessica Campbell and amateurish by his fiancée and her friend, begins to unravel the current homicide whose roots go back twenty-five years ago when Frieda was killed.

Anyone who enjoys a delightful English cozy that is a clever blending of amateur sleuth and police procedural will enjoy the Meredith-Markby tales. The latest tale is another strong entry as Markby and company investigate the current homicide that leads to the need to look at the first murder. The cast is wonderful and the new cop adds freshness to a fine who-done-it.

Harriet Klausner


Rating:
Summary: 3 1/2 stars: enjoyable in spite of the rushed ending
Review: Meredith Mitchell is rather looking forward to her upcoming marriage to Detective Superintendent Alan Markby, and their moving into the old vicarage. But first comes the packing, renovating of the vicarage and selling of both their current abodes. And in the meantime there is Meredith's old friend, Toby Smythe's return to England to enjoy. But Toby has a problem -- or more exactly a relative of his has. Alison Jenner, Toby's cousin's wife, has been receiving poison pen letters. About 25 years ago, Alison's aunt, Freda Kemp, was murdered, and Alison was tried for the crime. She was, however, acquitted of the charge. But now, she's receiving letters accusing of the murder and threatening to make her pay for her crime. Alison is near breaking point, and so Toby asks for Markby to talk to the Jenners and listen to their concerns. And although Markby is understandably reluctant to get unofficially involved in anything, he agrees to meet the Jenners. But before he can even start an investigation into the poison pen letters, Alison's stepdaughter is murdered in a manner similar to Freda Kemp. Is the murderer and the poison pen writer one and the same? Are the two murders, separated by 25 years connected at all? And what is Alison's part in all this? Is she innocent of all that is happening around her? Or is she hiding a darker and more sinister character? Detective Superintendent Markby must ask himself all these questions as he considers all the angles of this case...

This latest Mitchell & Markby mystery novel while enjoyable and intriguing, still felt a little off mainly because of the manner in which it suddenly culminated -- things were unfolding at a sedate but satisfactorily manner, when things suddenly picked up at a dizzy pace and clues and suspects came out of the woodwork for the explosive end. All very well, but I did still feel a little shortchanged -- perhaps if the real culprit could have been more than just a sinister suggestion in earlier chapters? All in all however, this Mitchell & Markby mystery novels was wonderfully engaging police cozy that was well written and loads of fun to loose oneself in. And in spite of my faintly aggrieved feelings, I did enjoy reading "That Way Lies Murder" quite a bit