A Legacy of Murder

Finished June 23

A Legacy of Murder by Connie Berry

This is the second book in the Kate Hamilton mystery series, set around American antiques dealer Kate as she visits the United Kingdom. Here, she is visiting her daughter Christine. Christine is starting an internship at the estate of Finchley Hall in Long Barston, where she will be organizing the archives. Kate will also be visiting with Tom Mallory, a policeman she met on her recent visit to Scotland.

Kate begins her visit with a tour of the estate, but the tour begins late, and ends abruptly when one of the tour attendees, a young boy, discovers a body in the lake. The body is one of the other interns and Kate's observant nature and curious mind have her giving tips to Tom, who is in charge of the investigation, and digging deeper herself. 

She gets to know local antique dealer Ivor Tweedy, who proves very helpful, and becomes friendly with the owner of the estate, Lady Barbara. There is an odd collection of items known as the Finchley Hoard, that was buried to protect them from theft and then rediscovered more than a century later. This collection will be on display for the first time during an upcoming ticketed event at the estate. Lady Barbara's butler Mugg is worried about the possibility of theft and security for the event is ramped up due to the recent death. 

There has also been mention of a 'strange foreign gentleman' hanging about nearby and rumours link him to Lady Barbara's missing son. Christine, Kate's daughter, is also having relationship issues, something common for her, but these issues bleed into other happenings at the estate and bring Christine under suspicion in the investigation. Kate is now motivated more strongly to get to the bottom of things.

I like this series, finding the antique aspect interesting and I like Kate's character for the most part. She is relatable and interesting. 

A Collection of Lies

Finished April 8

A Collection of Lies by Connie Berry

I read the first book in this series, A Dream of Death, recently and now seem to be reading them out of order, which is fine. Here, Kate Hamilton and Tom Mallory are newly married and on their honeymoon, but their future hasn't been entirely decided yet. They know where they will live in England, and one of their tasks on this trip is to do a piece of investigative work for a friend of Tom's who runs an investigative agency out of Canada. Tom is undecided whether to quit his job in the police and work for his friend or not. Kate had worked as an antique dealer in Ohio before she met Tom, and was a widow with grown children. 

Their task is to visit a museum in Coombe Mallet, Devon to look at a blood-stained dress recently received as a donation and to trace the provenance of the dress to verify, if they can, whether it actually belonged to Nancy Thorne, a Victorian lacemaker who returned home one day covered in blood with no explanation. Some suspected that she had killed someone, but no body was found, nor was anyone reported missing. Nancy lived with her sister, Sally Tucker, a dressmaker. 

The dress was donated by a man named Gideon Littlejohn, who although he makes his living in IT security, dresses and lives in his home as if he were a Victorian gentleman. So he's a bit eccentric, but seems like an intelligent man. The museum director Hugo Hawkes is eager to get the dress authenticated as it will be the star of a new exhibit at the museum, and he has recently hired a new textile conservator, Julia Kelly, to work on the piece and others that will be part of the collection. 

Kate and Tom attend a gala at the museum on their first evening there and a shot is fired, grazing Gideon. Most believe that the bullet was meant for the local MP, a reformed criminal named Teddy Pearce, who is determined to root out corruption locally. The local police, DCI Okoje and officer Varma O'Brien gladly ask for Tom to help them in the investigation. When Gideon is found dead in his home soon after, they find themselves helping in a murder investigation. There are plenty of suspects, and the couple find themselves digging into the past as they try to find motive and opportunity for the crime.

I liked the way Kate and Tom work together and value each others' knowledge and opinion. Kate's expertise in antiques and Tom's knowledge gained through his police work make them a great team. 

This case was interesting and really digs into history and makes me think of another series also based in Devon, the Wesley Peterson series by Kate Ellis, where there is an archaeological aspect to the cases.  

A December to Remember

Finished December 29

A December to Remember by Jenny Bayliss

Augustus Balthazar North, owner of North's Novelties and Curios in the village of Rowan Thorp has set off on his last adventure, dying in his van on an European mountain. He never really settled down, although he had charm enough to attract ladies and he never pretended to be anything he wasn't. Through his many liaisons he had three daughters, and they all spent a month every summer with him together.  

Maggie, the oldest lived in Rowan Thorp, her mother moving there to see if there was any long term relationship possible, and she ran a greengrocer that Maggie has now taken over. Simone's mother is very business-oriented and Simone is now a physiotherapist married to a therapist and the two are going through a rough patch after having several unsuccessful IVF tries. Star is a free spirit, similar to her mother, never settling down, growing up in a series of communes and in other group settings. She's just been evicted due to the actions of an ex-boyfriend. 

Augustus has set some strange conditions in his will, asking that his daughters work together to bring back the Winter Festival that the town used to have on the solstice. The other is that they find the 32 altered monopoly houses that Augustus has hidden in the shop. The shop has been around since the 1740s, with North's passing it down to the next generation, collecting interesting objects from all over.

The women hire Sotheby's to catalogue the items in the shop and possibly sell some of them at auction, and Sotheby's has sent a lovely young man who is very interested in Augustus' reputation as a collector, eager to see what treasures the shop holds. 

As the women look for the houses, research the festival which was held until several decades earlier, and get to know each other again, they also find community in Rowan Thorp, and find other reasons that the town is the place they want to call home. 

I really enjoyed all three sisters, who all have interesting lives that differ widely from each other, but are also good women. Each finds skills that contribute to their situation and that affect their personal lives in other long-term ways. There is humour, good will, and lots of good food as well.

A seasonal read that brings the feeling of joy and friendship out in a big way.

A delightful novel. 

A Dream of Death

Finished December 26

Dream of Death by Connie Berry

This is the first book in the Kate Hamilton Mysteries series. Kate is an antique dealer who lives in Ohio. She met her late husband at university there where he taught. He was from the Scottish island of Glenroth and Kate has visited a couple of times, but hasn't been back since his death three years ago. Their children are at university and she leads a busy life. 

When her sister-in-law Elenor calls her begging to her come she does, but it doesn't mean that she's comfortable about it. Her visitor coincides with the Tartan Ball, a late fall annual event. She's staying at the hotel that Elenor owned and ran, and where the ball takes place. 

Elenor doesn't fill her in completely about why she's asked her to come, but she has shown Kate a lovely historical casket, and given her a novel about a famous event on the island that a local historian has written, asking her to read it. 

At the ball a couple of announcements that Elenor makes don't go over very well with the locals, and Elenor ends up going back to her apartment in the hotel early. Kate is disturbed the next morning to find that Elenor is dead, and that her death was a copycat murder of one more than two centuries earlier, the woman the novel is about. 

With the local police dismissive of her ideas, Kate follows the clues that she sees through the eyes of someone who is aware of some history, but not a local herself. As she works out who she can trust, she finds herself confiding in the hotel's only other guest, a police investigator from England. 

I liked the historical aspect of the plot, as well as the information around antiques. This is in some ways a woman's story, both now and in the past, and Kate is a good observer. I'd definitely be interested in reading more in the series.

The Witch of Babylon

Finished November 26

The Witch of Babylon by D.J. McIntosh

This novel, the first in a trilogy, reaches back to ancient Babylonia and Assyria in the events that influence the plot. The main character, John Madison, is a Turkish-American art dealer, who was found and raised by his older half-brother Samuel after his parents' deaths. 

The two are close in many ways, but not in all. Samuel was also involved in the art world, specializing in ancient artifacts from the Middle East. As the book begins, John is going home from the hospital, where he has been recovering from a car accident, one in which he was driving the car, and that resulted in Samuel's death. Samuel had just returned from Iraq, where he had been trying to save museum pieces from looters following the Iraq War. There is one particular relic that Samuel had been focused on, one that hadn't yet gained the attention of the art and archeological world. 

John finds that he must follow in Samuel's footsteps and stay one step ahead of the others trying to find the artifact in order to find out what Samuel cared this much about, and to resolve his own personal issues. It may also be the only way to save his own life. 

John's old friend and client Hal has inserted himself into the situation and left John a puzzle to solve to be able to move forward in the search. Also involved is an archeologist named Tomas Zakar and his brother Ari, an Iraqi photojournalist. 

Among the people trying to find the artifact by any means necessary is an attractive young woman named Eris and a mysterious group of masked people who have an interest in alchemy. John doesn't know who to trust and makes many missteps in his searching. From New York to Iraq, this novel takes John on a journey into the past, both ancient and his own.