Remembering the Dead
Kindle Edition
Published September 10th 2019 by Crooked Lane Books
Goodreads synopsis:
In award-winning author Elizabeth J. Duncan's tenth Penny Brannigan mystery, Welsh amateur sleuth Penny Brannigan attends a dinner party at a posh country house--where a historic chair disappears and a waiter is murdered.
Artist and spa owner Penny Brannigan is dressed to the nines for a formal dinner at a charming country house. After dinner, the guests adjourn to the library for a private exhibition of the Black Chair, a precious piece of Welsh literary history awarded in 1917 to poet Hedd Wyn. But to the guests' shock, the newly restored bardic chair is missing. And then Penny discovers the rain-soaked body of a waiter.
When Penny learns that the victim was the nephew of one of her employees, she is determined to find the killer. Meanwhile, the local police search for the Black Chair. The Prince of Wales is traveling north to see the chair, so time is not on their side. A visit to a nursing home to consult an ex-thief convinces Penny that the Black Chair is connected to the waiter's murder. She rushes to Dublin to confront a disagreeable antiquarian, a gaggle of unsavory travelers, and an eccentric herbalist who seems to have something to hide. Can Penny find the chair and the culprit before she is laid to rest in the green grass of Wales?
***
4.5 Stars
This is the tenth book in the Penny Brannigan series by Elizabeth J. Duncan.
I am in awe of this author. A new favorite for me.
Sometimes when you read series with a lot of installments(books), you discover that the current books aren’t always as surprising or interesting as the previous books. I didn’t find that to be the case here. It felt like this was maybe book four or five in the series instead of ten. I thought that was pretty cool! Kudos to you for making it look so easy, Ms. Duncan.
Basic premise: Penny is roped into helping to plan an unexpected dinner party. An artifact (a chair) from near the turn of the century is coming to town and a local man has asked that the people in charge of it let the chair come to his home for a brief viewing. It will then be shown during an elaborate dinner party at this man’s house. The chair is then stolen and a waiter found dead before the night was complete. Now Penny is in investigation mode trying to uncover the killer.
I really enjoyed some of the people she met along the way like a young girl who had a passion for drawing plants, a thief who resided in a nursing home and a woman who was a bit of a wanderer. I also liked that there was a Detective Investigator in this book. I am not sure why they are so much more appealing to me than normal Detectives here in the states. I guess I must be weird that way. There was an odd entrance of the previous Detective Inspector that I thought was odd. I have not read other books in this series so I assume he was an important part of the series when it first started. Maybe the author was just trying to keep his memory alive in us in case he showed up in a future book in an important role.
I thought the mystery was excellent. It was a very circular plot and the story sort of wrapped around itself. I thought that was pretty neat. The lady Detective Inspector was wonderful and very patient which you don’t see a lot in cozy mysteries. Usually the police are merely annoyed by the amateur sleuth that they dare try and solve the mystery before they do.
I will definitely be reading more from this author. I find her work a bit unassuming and wish she had more of a cover the popped in order to draw other readers to her work. Wonderful stuff. Highly recommended.
I received this as an ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) in return for an honest review. I thank NetGalley, the publisher and the author for allowing me to read this title.
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