A FATAL BOOKING

4 stars out of 5

This is the third book in what is a new-to-me series, and I don't expect it to be my last. It's always refreshing to find a cozy heroine who keeps her wits about her, doesn't go off on tangents that put her life and those of others in jeopardy and (gasp!) actually works with and respects law enforcement.

Such is the happy case with Charlotte Reed, a former English teacher who now runs Chapters Bed and Breakfast in a North Carolina harbor town. Aided by her trusty housekeeper Alicia Simpson and chef Damian Carr, she's hosting a book club retreat that promises to be fun because it will focus on classic children's literature. But as the guests arrive, it becomes clear all is not well in fairy tale land; in fact, their primary form of interpersonal communication seems to be bickering. Even worse, a local boat captain warns Charlotte that one of the guests has, shall we say, a rather shady background.

Still, Charlotte is determined to make the best of it - and things manage to go well until they don't: that shady guest turns up dead during the Mad Hatter tea party in the garden - a victim, it appears, of cyanide poisoning. That's an aha moment, at least until it becomes clear that most of the book club guests have relatively easy access to the poison. Whoops!

Charlotte begins to investigate, with the help of her next-door friend Ellen, who has a secret background as a secret agent (as does the relative who left the house to Charlotte in her will). Mostly missing in action is Charlotte's main squeeze, Gavin Howard, also an agent who is away on assignment until close to the end of the book to lend his expertise to the case (and to Charlotte, but in a different way). 

All in all, it's a delight to watch the story unfold as Charlotte follows clues where they lead (always, as I mentioned previously, sharing her findings with the police). There's a little too much repetition as various characters mull over who could have done what and when to my liking, but it all works out in the end (which also brings the revelation of possible new directions for a couple of the main characters, making me even more eager to read the next installment. Till then, I thank the publisher, via NetGalley, for allowing me to read and review a pre-release copy of this one.

A Fatal Booking by Victoria Gilbert (Crooked Lane Books, June 2022); 304 pp.