Murder at Keyhaven Castle

Set in 1905 Hampshire, McKenna's uneven third Stella and Lyndy mystery (after 2020's Murder at Blackwater Bend) finds Kentucky heiress Stella Kendrick just days away from her wedding to Viscount "Lyndy" Lyndhurst at Morrington Hall, the Lyndhurst family estate. The receipt of an anonymous wedding present and the arrival of Stella's vulgar, braggart father creates tension, as does the failure of a champion racehorse, a part of Stella's dowry, to win an important race. During a trip to Southampton, Stella witnesses a cab accident that kills a man, who oddly turns out to have a newspaper clipping about the upcoming wedding. A murder at a historic castle follows that implicates a member of Lyndy's family. The two appealing leads are fully fleshed out, but secondary characters, like Stella's father and Lyndy's haughty mother and sister, amount to caricatures. Repetitive descriptions and recounting of past events at times pad the narrative, though the pace is brisk enough to hold readers' interest until the deus ex machina ending. This is not the place to start for newcomers. Agent: John Talbot, Talbot Fortune. (July)

An American marrying into an aristocratic family faces prejudice and peril in 1905 England. In some ways Stella Kendrick has been fortunate. She's survived a girlhood with a wealthy father eager to marry her to any British aristocrat so he'd be able to brag to his friends in Kentucky horse-racing circles. Her engagement to Viscount "Lyndy" Lyndhurst has become a love match because of the trust they've built up over several murder investigations. A trip to Southampton to pick up her father's friends the Swensons for her upcoming wedding becomes an introduction to murder when someone is trampled to death by runaway horses right in front of them. When the couple's police contact, Inspector Archibald Brown, identifies the man as a crooked jockey, they find themselves immersed in another murder case, but that's the least of Stella's problems in the run-up to the wedding. Her paternal uncle, Jedidiah Kendrick, turns up uninvited along with his two young children, putting her irascible father in an even worse mood than usual. Hoping to defuse the tension and get away from her disapproving future mother-in-law, Stella plans an outing to the ruins of Keyhaven Castle. When her father is pushed to his death by one of his friends or relatives, she faces conflicting emotions since she knows he never loved her. But she and Lyndy continue to investigate the world of racing, hoping to find a motive. The sleuthing couple unearth surprising revelations in an appealing continuation of their adventures. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.