Recommended reading for September.
Readers of Elly Griffiths’ The Stranger Diaries will be thrilled to learn that she has written another standalone mystery, The Postscript Murders. When 90-year-old Peggy Smith is found dead in her Shoreham-by-Sea apartment, no one suspects foul play. However, when her caregiver Natalka Kolisnyk cleans out the apartment and finds a business card that reads, “Mrs. M. Smith – Murder Consultant,” and shelves of murder mysteries with acknowledgments to Peggy Smith, she begins to wonder how this elderly woman actually died. Natalka joins forces with Benedict Cole, a former monk turned coffee shop owner, and Edwin Fitzgerald, a retired BBC producer. Both men were friends of Peggy’s and were startled by her unexpected death. Natalka also takes her suspicions to Detective Sergeant Harbinder Kaur. D.S. Kaur is intrigued by Natalka’s theories, but skeptical. Then an intruder with a gun takes a book from Peggy’s apartment. The characters in this deftly plotted mystery about murder mystery writers are delightful companions. It is sure to please.
Contributed by Maureen Millea Smith, a librarian at the Edina Library and a Minnesota Book Award-winning novelist.
