Mary Daheim Scots on the Rocks

Scots on the Rocks

Mary Daheim

Morrow, Jul 31 2007, $23.95

ISBN: 9780060566531

February is an extremely slow month for a Washington State B&B so to escape the weather and her abrasive mother, innkeeper Judith McMonigle Flynn, her spouse former cop Joe, her cousin Serena "Renie" Jones and her husband Dr. Bill travel to remote Scottish Grimloch Castle. The guys go off fishing but the gals, following an explosion, stumble over the corpse of local Harry Gibbs.

Unable to mind her business, Judith investigates. She learns the victim was a father and married to a wealthy oil heiress, whose first husband also died strangely. With Renie's help, Judith inquires into whether the wife could be a black widow although other suspects surface. While the locals close rank and tell the sleuthing Americans nothing, Joe and Bill fail to return to the castle. Worried about their husbands as others die mysteriously, Judith believes a die in the wool serial killer is at work, but no motive surfaces.

The latest B&B amateur sleuth takes the crew across the Atlantic where the brisk Scottish locale with a potential ghost amidst the ancient castle energizes the long running series in spite of the numerous local support players including the victim and the prime suspects being stereotypes. Still the whodunit is fun to follow especially when the cousins worry about their missing in action husbands while more homicides occur. Fans of the B&B will want to join Judith and Renie as they drink tea and Canadian whiskey (Renie is still quite a character) while solving their latest case.

Harriet Klausner