Sarah Mason Society Girls

Society Girls

Sarah Mason

Clemmie Colshannon returns crawling to her actor parents' home in Cornwall to wait tables after her globetrotting around the world proved disastrous following the loss of her job and her boyfriend - importance in that order. However, she has no time to mope as she learns that the Bristol Gazette society pages editor Emma McKellan has vanished one week before her marriage to Charlie Davidson over the objection of her wealthy father solicitor Sir Christopher.

The Bristol Gazette crime reporter Clemmie's sister Holly (see PLAYING JAMES) thinks Sir C has abducted his daughter to prevent the nuptials and she plans to break the story. She enlists Clemmie to assist her, but the bumbling siblings uncover a lot more than an irate father protecting his daughter from a gold-digger. Instead they connect Sir C to a drug case involving Charlie, who he put behind bars, and learn that Emma is pregnant and being used by Charlie to enact revenge. When Charlie realizes what the sisters are doing he switches targets causing Clan Colshannon to invade France.

The second Colshannon tale is a wacky amateur sleuth tale starring an eccentric crowd that seems like the Little Foys were turned on their head. The investigative storyline hooks the audience as much for the inter-relationship between the lead family as for the mystery. Readers will appreciate this amusing mystery and look forward to a third Colshannon sibling installment.

Ballantine, Jul 2005, $12.95, 368 pp.

ISBN: 0345469577

Harriet Klausner