SOMETHING BLUE

4 stars out of 5

This series continues to enthrall, "forcing" me to set aside other books I need to read and review just to find out what happens next in the adventures of Lord and Lady Hetheridge (this is the third installment). This one begins as the couple - Tony and Kate - have set a wedding date three weeks away but have turned over the planning to a good friend. Meantime, Tony - Baron of Wellegrave and chief superintendent of the New Scotland Yard - and Detective Sergeant Kate Wakefield, must deal with a murder (with help, and one-liners that kept me chuckling throughout, from Kate's capable partner Paul Bhar).

This time, the victim is the head honcho of an oil company that has taken heat for a recent major oil spill. He's thrown a big party to divert attention from the damage, and sometime after the guests have gone, he was poisoned. The killer may well be one of the guests, which include Duncan Godington - a suspected serial killer who's managed to evade conviction on other occasions in past books.

To be sure, there's no shortage of suspects, most of them quirky. Riley, for instance, insists she was engaged to the still-married victim - and she claims to be a full-blooded Comanche as well as a "spiritual practitioner." Then there's the other fiance, who also claims the victim was planning to marry right after his divorce was final. Meanwhile, the actual wife - who will inherit the man's fortune - insists he wasn't planning to divorce her at all. Also factoring in is Jules, the daughter Tony didn't know he had until the previous book; she has, it seems, developed a fondness for Tony's old nemesis, Duncan.

Scotland Yard powers-that-be are also gunning for Tony - egged on by a jealous department rival. It doesn't hurt that Tony is about to marry a "common" woman - one who not only half his age but on the department payroll. All that, and a big wedding neither Tony nor Kate really want, must get sorted out by the end of the book - and they do, in the usual fine fettle. Another very good book in this highly entertaining series!

Something Blue by Emma Jameson (Lyonnesse Books, May 2013); 246 pp.