There's a Murder Afoot by Vicki DelanyMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book was the perfect change of pace for this Friday evening! Delaney writes a decent cozy mystery. I'm warming up to Emma Doyle as a character and although I wondered about the author's choice to move this book to England instead of Cape Cod, I think I actually liked it better than previous books.
Delaney ingeniously brings the whole gang (Ryan, Jayne, Grant, even eccentric Donald) by positing a Sherlock Holmes conference that they are all attending. In London, we get to meet Emma's family, the retired cop father, lawyer mother, and apparently the spy sister. It explains some Emma oddities, as it was meant to.
I feel like Emma has evolved as a character—not quite so clueless about dealing with people as she's been portrayed in the earlier volumes. And she has plenty to deal with, as her father gets arrested by a vindictive former coworker for the murder of her uncle. Emma may stick her nose in where it doesn't belong, but in London she has sister Pippa backing her up. The sisters don't have the best relationship, but they make a formidable team. A lot of this book seems to be about Emma improving her relationships as well as investigating the family murder.
I think part of the appeal to the change of scenery is that Delaney is able to break the characters out of the habitual ruts that she had written them into. Emma & Jayne still drink a lot of tea, just not in their Cape Cod tea house. Emma gets to annoy new police officers. Ryan isn't involved in the case, so he only gets mildly bent out of shape when Emma interferes. Violet the dog isn't being semi-ignored by her owner who is busy eating out at the same place repeatedly.
This surprises me, but I will definitely read the next installment.
View all my reviews
No comments:
Post a Comment