Argyles and arsenic

Molly MacRae

Book - 2022

"In the latest novel in the beloved Highland Bookshop Mystery Series, a murder at a baronial manor leads to a poisonous game of cat and mouse--with the women of Yon Bonnie Books playing to win. After 93 well-lived years, Violet MacAskill is ready to simplify her life. Her eccentric solution? She'll throw a decanting and decluttering party at her family home--a Scottish Baronial manor near the seaside town of Inversgail, Scotland. Violet sets aside everything she wants or needs, then she invites her many friends in to sip sherry and help themselves to whatever they want from all that's left. Janet Marsh and Christine Robertson, two of the women who own Yon Bonnie Books in Inversgail, enjoy themselves at the party. Not everyone... who attends has a good time, though. Wendy Erskine, director of the Inversgail museum, is found dead, and rumors swirl about food poisoning from a local food truck. Then Violet tells Constable Hobbs that a tin of rat poison is missing. And when Hobbs' own grandmother comes under suspicion for murder, he enlists the women from Yon Bonnie Books, and the race is on to find the murderer. But where do they begin? Are there clues in the "Shocking Stockings" exhibit at the museum? Will the antique scrapbook pasted full of trivia about arsenic and bygone poisoners offer a solution? Or does the answer lie closer to home--is one of Violet's friends truly toxic? Poisonous games are afoot in Inversgail and the women of Yon Bonnie Books are playing to win."--provided by publisher.

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Subjects
Genres
Mystery fiction
Detective and mystery fiction
Cozy mysteries
Published
New York : Pegasus Crime 2022.
Language
English
Main Author
Molly MacRae (author)
Edition
First Pegasus Books hardcover edition
Physical Description
292 pages ; 24 cm
ISBN
9781643138893
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

Constable Hobbs calls them the SCONES (Shadow Constabulary of Nosy Eavesdropping Snoops), and it fits. Immigrant Janet Marsh and her daughter, Tallie, along with Janet's best friend, Christine, and Tallie's college roommate run a bookstore and adjoining tea room in Inversgail, Scotland. The shops are a venue for an Argyle-sock knitting competition that promotes the exhibit of local handicrafts at the town museum. Shortly after the competition opens, Violet, the elderly owner of a baronial mansion on the edge of town and a significant benefactor of the museum, hosts a "decanting and decluttering" party. Janet and Christine find the museum director dead in a room that Violet claims was locked. Suspicion falls first on the local food-truck driver, but when he is found dead, also from arsenic poisoning, nearly everyone, from Constable Hobbs' grandmother to a local author, is a suspect. Hobbs calls in the SCONES, with the sock knitters providing behind-the-needles gossip. This ensemble-sleuth mystery will appeal to book lovers and needlecrafters as well as to fans of Paige Shelton (for the bookstore frame) or Allie Pleiter (for the knitting).

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

In MacRae's witty if flawed fifth Highland Bookshop mystery (after 2021's Heather and Homicide), American Janet Marsh and her crew of fellow expats at the combination bookstore/tearoom Yon Bonny Books have already proven themselves adept investigators of suspicious goings-on in their little Highland town of Inversgale. In fact, they have such a reputation that the locals have christened them SCONES--Shadow Constabulary of Nosy, Eavesdropping Snoops. So when Wendy Erskine, director of Inversgale's history museum, dies of arsenic poisoning at Violet McAskill's grand Fairy Flax Hall decluttering party, Constable Norman Hobbs asks the group to do a little unofficial detecting on the q.t. He's been sidelined on the investigation since his grandmother is one of the suspects. MacRae revels in clever wordplay and banter, but the meandering murder investigation is hard to follow, and the reveal seems like an afterthought. Cozy lovers who come for the atmosphere and the camaraderie will enjoy themselves. What's not to like about a knitting competition, Scottish scenery, books, and scones? Agent: Cynthia Manson, Cynthia Manson Literary. (Mar.)

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