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I received this book for an honest review from Netgalley and the publisher.
Anonymous letters, a years-old mystery and… a dead body? Ally McKinley is on the case!
Ally McKinley might be the owner of the cosiest little guesthouse in the Scottish Highlands, but she also has a reputation as an amateur detective! So, when a threatening note drops through her elderly neighbour Juliet Munro’s door, Ally is called in to investigate. But what first seems like a nasty prank soon proves lethal, when the very next day, Juliet is found murdered…
With her faithful dog Flora by her side, Ally soon learns that more than one woman in Locharran has received a poison pen letter. And though locals’ lips are sealed over coffee and cake, Ally skillfully unlocks the old Locharran mystery that connects the recipients: they were all rumoured to be involved in the death of a young woman called Marie McKay. Is someone trying to stamp out Marie’s killer? And if so, who in Locharran is not who they seem?
A faded photo of a little blond boy with pale eyes has Ally on the right track, but when a woman’s scream shatters the village’s gentle calm, can Ally sort through the secrets before the post delivers another murder?
My Thoughts
This is one of my favorite cozy mysteries, especially now that cozies and I aren't getting along like we used to. So, it was fun getting back into this series, and the town of Locharran and the characters I have come to adore.
So this one starts out with Desdemona asking Ally to come and talk to her and a friend because the lady was upset over a note. Ally wasn't able to come right away, and when they got there the next day, the older lady was dead in a tub. Once it was deemed not a suicide, Ally's nosy curiosity was piqued, and when it happened to another older lady, she was really curious.
Ally used to be a television researcher before retiring and coming to Locharran to turn an old malt house into a bed and breakfast. So, she also has some guests to attend to as well; at the beginning, she had her son and his wife staying there. It was their first time since she renovated the place. Then there was a birdwatching couple; after her son left, a single man, Mark, showed up and eventually, towards the later part, another couple came to stay, so she can be pretty busy. She still has tons of time to sleuth, though.
Once Ally puts things together and that each of the ladies that was killed had a letter, she found out they were in choir together a long time ago, and there were others, and that lead to finding out about what happened to one of the ladies. Seems like someone has come back to town to seek revenge on these older ladies, and could Ally be harboring a killer!
This one had a lot of near misses for some of the ladies, which I am glad, so that it didn't become a book full of murders, as a couple is enough, but at the same time it seemed a bit overdone too. I think one of the things I really enjoy about this series is the setting and the people we get to hang out with in each story. I also love the way Ally works with the detective and that the detective is just a friend and not a romantic interest.
If you like cozy mysteries, then I really think you will enjoy this series.
4.25 stars
Dee MacDonald grew up on an isolated farm in the Scottish Highlands. An only child, she’d often get fed up of reading and listening to a crackling radio, so her mother encouraged her to draw and to write ‘wee stories’, which she’d sew together into little books.
As an adult, her working life took her all over the globe as an air stewardess, into the world of TV, where she worked in Market Research and Sales, and then into hospitality, running B&Bs for over ten years.
After first finding her love of writing as a little girl, Dee became a published author of cosy crime and women’s fiction in her seventies. She lives by the sea in Cornwall with her husband and has one son and two grandsons.
Amazon: https://geni.us/B0GX2J2B3Hsocial
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