2015 reading, October
Pride v. Prejudice - Joan Hess 10/31/15 Claire Malloy is rejected from jury duty and humiliated by an idiot prosecutor and decides to help clear a woman being prosecuted for murdering her husband. She didn’t. They turn out to be fugitives from the feds, having been involved in a sit-in in 1970 in which an undercover FBI agent was killed. She is lying to her public defender in hope that the feds won’t find her, but Claire figures it all out. Nicely complicated.
The History of Serbia - John K. Cox 10/30/15 Written 15 years ago, and more than a little out of date. I am influenced by reading Force Ten from Navarone - Alistair MacLean, & Rex Stout’s The Black Mountain, also very out of date but both are fiction. Serbian neighbors, but have not asked about their experiences. Yet. I find my memories of the 1990s Balkan Wars blurred both geographically and politically.
Betty: A Glad Awakening - Betty Ford 10/28/15 Pretty much everything since The Intervention.
American Heartbeat: Notes from a Midwestern Journey - Simon Winchester 10/27/15 a driving trip 40 years ago from International Falls to Duluth, then down I-35 to Laredo, TX, sounding the people for opinion right after Nixon’s resignation, plus geography. Other than referring to parallel when he means meridian, no complaints.
Death & the Lit Chick - G. M. Malliet 10/26/15 St, Just is dragooned to give a speech at a mystery conference in Edinburgh as the guest of a publisher, who is putting up all his authors in a castle nearby. Kimberlee, a nasty but glamorous and successful writer, is murdered there, with the drawbridge drawn up a la Christie’s Ten Little Indians - has to be someone inside. As all the authors write fiction, they are all practiced “liars”, and the alcohol has been flowing freely > timelines are most unclear, and all had reason to kill her: professional jealousy, publicity money spent on her to the detriment of their books, et cetera. Enjoyed much more than the previous book.
My Venice and Other Essays - Donna Leon 10/24/15 assorted subjects, most 2-3 pages. We are amazingly akin in opinion. Enjoyed a lot.
The Times of My Life - Betty Ford 10/23/15 fairly casual autobiography. Enjoyed
Murder as a Second Language - Joan Hess 10/22/15 Claire Malloy is bored, now that she & Peter are married & she doesn’t have to depend on the Book Depot for income. Her daughter Caron has to do some volunteer work as padding for her college application next year, so she & her BFF Inez are tutoring at the Farberville Literacy Center, which specializes in ESL. Claire decided to volunteer also, but can’t tutor - the next tutor prep class isn’t for another two months. She is roped into being on the board and being the receptionist. Of course there’s a murder ASAP. The victim is a very disagreeable elderly Polish woman, the grandmother of a professor of linguistics at Farberville College. The director of the center is very disorganized, can’t keep the finances straight, and is still broken up about his wife’s death 2 years earlier. The only accredited teacher also teaches online for additional income; all the tutors are volunteer. The janitor is the son of a board member doing “community service” instead of legal penalties. There are really 4 plots, all meshed together nicely at the end.
Murder, Simply Stitched - Isabella Alan 10/20/15 Angie’s Amish friends Rachel and Aaron run the bakery acrross the street. They have also bought an open plot of land to build a pie factory, but Wanda, a township trustee, has decided that they would be in violation of an ordinance. Angie & Rachel go to a weekly auction, Angie to sell three quilts, Rachel to have a bakery table. Wanda tells Rachel the plan will be voted down, Rachel accepts this and gives Wanda a hand pie, Wanda eats it and dies - peanut allergy. But there were no peanuts in the pie Rachel gave her. Rachel & Aaron are being framed, Angie to the rescue over Aaron’s protests of independence. Much more complicated, but no spoilers.
Murder, Plain and Simple - Isabella Alan 10/20/15 Angela Burroughs comes to Rolling Brook, in Ohio’s Amish country to run Running Stitch, the quilting shop her aunt, an Amish convert, left her. Aunt Eleanor didn’t leave the deed to the shop anywhere anyone could find it, and Jonathan Walker disputes Angie’s ownership. The day after Angie’s Grand Re-Opening, Jonathan is found with his throat slashed in Angie’s stockroom, entangled in the ruins of a quilt Aunt Eleanor had made for Angie. Stress between the Amish community and the “English”, who have different ideas about where the community’s future lies. Angie also has a French bulldog, terrified of birds, having been bred & raised in high-rise Dallas. Arson a major thread.
SPQR XIII The Year of Confusion - John Maddox Roberts 10/19/15 Caius Julius Caesar is now Dictator, the Senate is very unhappy, & plots against him are starting (but not yet). Caesar institutes the new calendar, to put the months back in sync with the actual season, all the business people are unhappy, and bingo, someone murders an astrologer. Most of the rich women of Rome get horoscopes for their male impedimenta, as they are even more emotionally invested with the men’s success than the men are. Cleopatra is living in Rome - all the best parties, most licentious outside a brothel - pushing Caesar to name her son Caesarion his heir, Atia pushing her son Octavius, Servilia pushing Brutus. Decius Metullus, married to Caesar’s niece, gets to figure out who killed the astrologer. Or was an astronomer meant as the victim instead? This seems to be the last in the series.
Murder 101 - Faye Kellerman 10/15/15 Peter Decker has retired from the L.A.P. D. & moved to upstate NY with his wife Rina. Tyler McAdam, a young man of great privilege (very smart, rich, arrogant, Harvard) works in the local police department - a favor from the captain to the mayor to Tyler’s father, a local college alumnus who has Given Lots to the area. Tyler goes around with Peter every so often - the entire department is sick of him. A local cemetery watchman reports a changed lock > break-in to a mausoleum, theft of two Tiffany panels and replacement with forged copies. All the family knew of the Tiffanys & wasn’t shy about mentioning them > lots of theft possibilities, but the forgery is more difficult. Two days later a woman is found slain, an ex-boyfriend had followed her & seen a new lover, the new lover was *butchered* but the ex has a confirmed alibi (and didn’t do it.) Art fraud galore. Loved it.
The Garden of Eden and Other Criminal Delights - Faye Kellerman 10/11/15 short stories, which, generally, I do not enjoy. Being completist here.
Murder and Mendelssohn - Kerry Greenwood 10/11/15 Phryne Fisher is at home in Melbourne. The local amateur (in the best senses) choir is rehearsing Elijah, their conductor has a fierce tongue, so it’s not terribly surprising he is found dead in his office. John, one of Phryne’s old lovers, a not-quite-minted doctor snatched from medical school who ran a triage station during WWI, is also in Melbourne with a new unreciprocated dear friend, Rupert, who was a codebreaker (not only Bletchley!) and now lectures in mathematics and detection and is cold and arrogant. John was wounded badly but mended well but still has a Bad Leg, which Rupert doesn’t pay sufficient attention to. Several attempts on Rupert’s life which John averts, getting further injured, which Rupert still thinks unlogical - Logic Being All. Then the second conductor is killed - equally abrasive as the first one. Phryne wires her old boss in the spy biz & gets an introduction to the local MI6, very useful. Up to her usual standard!
The Beast - Faye Kellerman 10/10/15 Peter & Rina #21 Bad smell from an apartment = dead body, & in this series, very likely homicide. Lieutenant Peter Decker & team are called - strange noises turn out to be a female Bengal tiger & her dead very rich owner. She didn’t do it - he was a user of prostitutes. SPOILER He was 89 but into very kinky sex & shot one of the girls, the other blackjacked him in self-defense, but he was shot but the building manager who also kept the gun, confusing the cops greatly. The dead man also collected the venomous: snakes, insects, spiders, fish. He was generous to the manager of a wildlife refuge (also suspected of killing him) who cleaned cages & fed the menagerie. He also had estranged children and an ex-wife, all of whom he was generous to financially, but the horrible personality kept them away.
If Books Could Kill - Kate Carlisle 10/10/15 Brooklyn Wainwright is a bookbinder based in San Francisco, visiting Edinburgh for an antiquarian books fair, scheduled to teach a class > she has brought her tools with her. Derek, the security chief who suspected her of murder in the previous book, is on his way home to England on the same plane. Before the fair starts she runs into an old boyfriend, Kyle - rich, entertaining, handsome, & incapable of fidelity. She also runs across Helen, who is divorcing her very possessive husband Martin. (Quiet cheers from Brooklyn.) Kyle is killed with Brooklyn’s hammer > she is prime suspect. Fortunately Angus, the detective inspector in charge, is heavily influenced by Derek, with whom he has some unspecified professional background. Kyle had a book purportedly written by Robert Burns, beautifully bound by Cathcart, one of Kyle’s ancestors, inscribed to Cathcart by Burns, which he has given to Brooklyn to authenticate. Kyle had also talked about the book to Perry, an ardent monarchist, infuriated by the scurrilous family legend about the book.Members of the Robert Burns Society are also infuriated - Burns was too ardent a Scottish Nationalist for the scurrilous legend to be true. Later, Perry turns up dead, killed also with one of Kate’s tools - fortunately she has an unbreakable alibi. And more complications. Sort of funny.
Designed to Die - Chloe Green 10/9/15 Dallas O’Connor is a stylist for photographic shoots, mostly advertising. A new menswear company is doing a major very-high-end brochure, based in Seattle but in several places in Washington. Triple ownership: Kim Charles, Tobin Marconi, & Thom Goodfeather; Kim & Tobin are the designers, Thom the finance end. Four male models plus a young woman to pose as their muse, and the female model is a substitute, a very different shape than the original, who broke her leg the night before. (Clothes won’t fit.) On the first night one of the models is killed: his brand-new car shoots off a pier, Dallas tries to save him but can’t & nearly has hypothermia herself. The car is identical to the one Kim & Tobin drive, so were either of them the target, or the model? Several days later the producer of the shoot is killed in a hit-and-run, but she was wearing Tobin’s jacket. Who’s the target? And was the original female model also targeted?
In the Teeth of Adversity - Marian Babson 10/8/15 Perkins & Tate, Public Relations, is stuck in another murder or two. Their client, Endicott Zayle, runs to their office before calling the police when he says his patient Morgana Fane dies in the chair as a reaction to a new anesthetic he & his dental partner Tyler Meredith have invented. Only she isn’t dead, the partner is. The partner has also seduced & proposed to Endicott’s wife Adele, and the Honourable Edytha Cale-Cunningham, and an MP, at last count. Endicott’s father General Sir Malcolm Zayle is also a dentist, but his mind is firmly still in WWI and II, though this was first published in 1990. No clue to the villain until the last 7 pages.
Chocolate Dipped Death - Sammi Carter 10/7/15 Abby Shaw is holding a candy-making contest; the first round is won by Savannah, a ruthless beautiful woman who had a deservedly bad reputation in high school 20 years ago > half the town hates her. She is missing the next morning, her husband comes to Abby for help, a search is organized, the next morning Abby finds the body. Motives: Evie, who is incredibly competitive, has won the contests for years, who was kicked off the cheerleading team after Savannah spread malicious false rumors about her; Abby’s cousin Karen, whose husband made the mistake of having a drink with Savannah & Karen saw them, Savannah’s sister Delta - their mother had died recently & Savannah wanted half the estate: and, and, and, and.
Green Grow the Victims - Jeanne M. Dams 10/5/15 Hilda Johansson #3 South Bend, Indiana 1902 Hilda, a Swedish Lutheran, is a maid working for the Studebaker family, seeing Patrick Cavanaugh, Irish Catholic, against the wishes of both their families. Patrick’s uncle is missing and accused of the murder of a political rival. Patrick’s aunt is aware of Hilda’s previous successes in solving problems and gets business associates to get her employer’s permission to hire her to find the uncle, who had been kidnapped. Hilda found him, then was kidnapped herself. And more ructions.
Assaulted Pretzel - Laura Bradford 10/5/15 In Heavenly, PA, there is a food festival about to start, featuring the many Amish cooks of the community. Claire Weatherby, after her recent divorce, lives there with her aunt Diane, who owns/runs an inn. Robert Karble, a toy manufacturer, his wife Ann, and the factory’s public relations woman Melinda are among the guests. Robert is murdered during the festival’s first day after a PR memo is sent out stating that the firm would make Amish toys at the factory, not in Heavenly by Amish men as Robert had planned. The town is furious, feeling doublecrossed; the Amish devastated - they have run out of farmland & need jobs, like the rest of the country. The schematic drawings for the toys are stolen. Two toymakers are obvious suspects, Ann thinks the Amish toys were Melinda’s idea & is jealous as all getout, giving both a motive, but not so fast. Two other motives would be spoilers.
Shadows of Death - Jeanne M. Dams 10/2/15 Dorothy Martin & her husband retired Chief Constable Alan Nesbitt go to Orkney for a vacation, which turns into a murder investigation - the police are sidetracked by a terrorist threat. Archeologic excavations to be dug, paid for by an arrogant American, who is murdered, the local museum’s director framed by the chief archeologist, the director’s insane mother hid him then disappeared herself. Dorothy & Alan & their dog Watson find her, unraveling all the scams.
The History of Serbia - John K. Cox 10/30/15 Written 15 years ago, and more than a little out of date. I am influenced by reading Force Ten from Navarone - Alistair MacLean, & Rex Stout’s The Black Mountain, also very out of date but both are fiction. Serbian neighbors, but have not asked about their experiences. Yet. I find my memories of the 1990s Balkan Wars blurred both geographically and politically.
Betty: A Glad Awakening - Betty Ford 10/28/15 Pretty much everything since The Intervention.
American Heartbeat: Notes from a Midwestern Journey - Simon Winchester 10/27/15 a driving trip 40 years ago from International Falls to Duluth, then down I-35 to Laredo, TX, sounding the people for opinion right after Nixon’s resignation, plus geography. Other than referring to parallel when he means meridian, no complaints.
Death & the Lit Chick - G. M. Malliet 10/26/15 St, Just is dragooned to give a speech at a mystery conference in Edinburgh as the guest of a publisher, who is putting up all his authors in a castle nearby. Kimberlee, a nasty but glamorous and successful writer, is murdered there, with the drawbridge drawn up a la Christie’s Ten Little Indians - has to be someone inside. As all the authors write fiction, they are all practiced “liars”, and the alcohol has been flowing freely > timelines are most unclear, and all had reason to kill her: professional jealousy, publicity money spent on her to the detriment of their books, et cetera. Enjoyed much more than the previous book.
My Venice and Other Essays - Donna Leon 10/24/15 assorted subjects, most 2-3 pages. We are amazingly akin in opinion. Enjoyed a lot.
The Times of My Life - Betty Ford 10/23/15 fairly casual autobiography. Enjoyed
Murder as a Second Language - Joan Hess 10/22/15 Claire Malloy is bored, now that she & Peter are married & she doesn’t have to depend on the Book Depot for income. Her daughter Caron has to do some volunteer work as padding for her college application next year, so she & her BFF Inez are tutoring at the Farberville Literacy Center, which specializes in ESL. Claire decided to volunteer also, but can’t tutor - the next tutor prep class isn’t for another two months. She is roped into being on the board and being the receptionist. Of course there’s a murder ASAP. The victim is a very disagreeable elderly Polish woman, the grandmother of a professor of linguistics at Farberville College. The director of the center is very disorganized, can’t keep the finances straight, and is still broken up about his wife’s death 2 years earlier. The only accredited teacher also teaches online for additional income; all the tutors are volunteer. The janitor is the son of a board member doing “community service” instead of legal penalties. There are really 4 plots, all meshed together nicely at the end.
Murder, Simply Stitched - Isabella Alan 10/20/15 Angie’s Amish friends Rachel and Aaron run the bakery acrross the street. They have also bought an open plot of land to build a pie factory, but Wanda, a township trustee, has decided that they would be in violation of an ordinance. Angie & Rachel go to a weekly auction, Angie to sell three quilts, Rachel to have a bakery table. Wanda tells Rachel the plan will be voted down, Rachel accepts this and gives Wanda a hand pie, Wanda eats it and dies - peanut allergy. But there were no peanuts in the pie Rachel gave her. Rachel & Aaron are being framed, Angie to the rescue over Aaron’s protests of independence. Much more complicated, but no spoilers.
Murder, Plain and Simple - Isabella Alan 10/20/15 Angela Burroughs comes to Rolling Brook, in Ohio’s Amish country to run Running Stitch, the quilting shop her aunt, an Amish convert, left her. Aunt Eleanor didn’t leave the deed to the shop anywhere anyone could find it, and Jonathan Walker disputes Angie’s ownership. The day after Angie’s Grand Re-Opening, Jonathan is found with his throat slashed in Angie’s stockroom, entangled in the ruins of a quilt Aunt Eleanor had made for Angie. Stress between the Amish community and the “English”, who have different ideas about where the community’s future lies. Angie also has a French bulldog, terrified of birds, having been bred & raised in high-rise Dallas. Arson a major thread.
SPQR XIII The Year of Confusion - John Maddox Roberts 10/19/15 Caius Julius Caesar is now Dictator, the Senate is very unhappy, & plots against him are starting (but not yet). Caesar institutes the new calendar, to put the months back in sync with the actual season, all the business people are unhappy, and bingo, someone murders an astrologer. Most of the rich women of Rome get horoscopes for their male impedimenta, as they are even more emotionally invested with the men’s success than the men are. Cleopatra is living in Rome - all the best parties, most licentious outside a brothel - pushing Caesar to name her son Caesarion his heir, Atia pushing her son Octavius, Servilia pushing Brutus. Decius Metullus, married to Caesar’s niece, gets to figure out who killed the astrologer. Or was an astronomer meant as the victim instead? This seems to be the last in the series.
Murder 101 - Faye Kellerman 10/15/15 Peter Decker has retired from the L.A.P. D. & moved to upstate NY with his wife Rina. Tyler McAdam, a young man of great privilege (very smart, rich, arrogant, Harvard) works in the local police department - a favor from the captain to the mayor to Tyler’s father, a local college alumnus who has Given Lots to the area. Tyler goes around with Peter every so often - the entire department is sick of him. A local cemetery watchman reports a changed lock > break-in to a mausoleum, theft of two Tiffany panels and replacement with forged copies. All the family knew of the Tiffanys & wasn’t shy about mentioning them > lots of theft possibilities, but the forgery is more difficult. Two days later a woman is found slain, an ex-boyfriend had followed her & seen a new lover, the new lover was *butchered* but the ex has a confirmed alibi (and didn’t do it.) Art fraud galore. Loved it.
The Garden of Eden and Other Criminal Delights - Faye Kellerman 10/11/15 short stories, which, generally, I do not enjoy. Being completist here.
Murder and Mendelssohn - Kerry Greenwood 10/11/15 Phryne Fisher is at home in Melbourne. The local amateur (in the best senses) choir is rehearsing Elijah, their conductor has a fierce tongue, so it’s not terribly surprising he is found dead in his office. John, one of Phryne’s old lovers, a not-quite-minted doctor snatched from medical school who ran a triage station during WWI, is also in Melbourne with a new unreciprocated dear friend, Rupert, who was a codebreaker (not only Bletchley!) and now lectures in mathematics and detection and is cold and arrogant. John was wounded badly but mended well but still has a Bad Leg, which Rupert doesn’t pay sufficient attention to. Several attempts on Rupert’s life which John averts, getting further injured, which Rupert still thinks unlogical - Logic Being All. Then the second conductor is killed - equally abrasive as the first one. Phryne wires her old boss in the spy biz & gets an introduction to the local MI6, very useful. Up to her usual standard!
The Beast - Faye Kellerman 10/10/15 Peter & Rina #21 Bad smell from an apartment = dead body, & in this series, very likely homicide. Lieutenant Peter Decker & team are called - strange noises turn out to be a female Bengal tiger & her dead very rich owner. She didn’t do it - he was a user of prostitutes. SPOILER He was 89 but into very kinky sex & shot one of the girls, the other blackjacked him in self-defense, but he was shot but the building manager who also kept the gun, confusing the cops greatly. The dead man also collected the venomous: snakes, insects, spiders, fish. He was generous to the manager of a wildlife refuge (also suspected of killing him) who cleaned cages & fed the menagerie. He also had estranged children and an ex-wife, all of whom he was generous to financially, but the horrible personality kept them away.
If Books Could Kill - Kate Carlisle 10/10/15 Brooklyn Wainwright is a bookbinder based in San Francisco, visiting Edinburgh for an antiquarian books fair, scheduled to teach a class > she has brought her tools with her. Derek, the security chief who suspected her of murder in the previous book, is on his way home to England on the same plane. Before the fair starts she runs into an old boyfriend, Kyle - rich, entertaining, handsome, & incapable of fidelity. She also runs across Helen, who is divorcing her very possessive husband Martin. (Quiet cheers from Brooklyn.) Kyle is killed with Brooklyn’s hammer > she is prime suspect. Fortunately Angus, the detective inspector in charge, is heavily influenced by Derek, with whom he has some unspecified professional background. Kyle had a book purportedly written by Robert Burns, beautifully bound by Cathcart, one of Kyle’s ancestors, inscribed to Cathcart by Burns, which he has given to Brooklyn to authenticate. Kyle had also talked about the book to Perry, an ardent monarchist, infuriated by the scurrilous family legend about the book.Members of the Robert Burns Society are also infuriated - Burns was too ardent a Scottish Nationalist for the scurrilous legend to be true. Later, Perry turns up dead, killed also with one of Kate’s tools - fortunately she has an unbreakable alibi. And more complications. Sort of funny.
Designed to Die - Chloe Green 10/9/15 Dallas O’Connor is a stylist for photographic shoots, mostly advertising. A new menswear company is doing a major very-high-end brochure, based in Seattle but in several places in Washington. Triple ownership: Kim Charles, Tobin Marconi, & Thom Goodfeather; Kim & Tobin are the designers, Thom the finance end. Four male models plus a young woman to pose as their muse, and the female model is a substitute, a very different shape than the original, who broke her leg the night before. (Clothes won’t fit.) On the first night one of the models is killed: his brand-new car shoots off a pier, Dallas tries to save him but can’t & nearly has hypothermia herself. The car is identical to the one Kim & Tobin drive, so were either of them the target, or the model? Several days later the producer of the shoot is killed in a hit-and-run, but she was wearing Tobin’s jacket. Who’s the target? And was the original female model also targeted?
In the Teeth of Adversity - Marian Babson 10/8/15 Perkins & Tate, Public Relations, is stuck in another murder or two. Their client, Endicott Zayle, runs to their office before calling the police when he says his patient Morgana Fane dies in the chair as a reaction to a new anesthetic he & his dental partner Tyler Meredith have invented. Only she isn’t dead, the partner is. The partner has also seduced & proposed to Endicott’s wife Adele, and the Honourable Edytha Cale-Cunningham, and an MP, at last count. Endicott’s father General Sir Malcolm Zayle is also a dentist, but his mind is firmly still in WWI and II, though this was first published in 1990. No clue to the villain until the last 7 pages.
Chocolate Dipped Death - Sammi Carter 10/7/15 Abby Shaw is holding a candy-making contest; the first round is won by Savannah, a ruthless beautiful woman who had a deservedly bad reputation in high school 20 years ago > half the town hates her. She is missing the next morning, her husband comes to Abby for help, a search is organized, the next morning Abby finds the body. Motives: Evie, who is incredibly competitive, has won the contests for years, who was kicked off the cheerleading team after Savannah spread malicious false rumors about her; Abby’s cousin Karen, whose husband made the mistake of having a drink with Savannah & Karen saw them, Savannah’s sister Delta - their mother had died recently & Savannah wanted half the estate: and, and, and, and.
Green Grow the Victims - Jeanne M. Dams 10/5/15 Hilda Johansson #3 South Bend, Indiana 1902 Hilda, a Swedish Lutheran, is a maid working for the Studebaker family, seeing Patrick Cavanaugh, Irish Catholic, against the wishes of both their families. Patrick’s uncle is missing and accused of the murder of a political rival. Patrick’s aunt is aware of Hilda’s previous successes in solving problems and gets business associates to get her employer’s permission to hire her to find the uncle, who had been kidnapped. Hilda found him, then was kidnapped herself. And more ructions.
Assaulted Pretzel - Laura Bradford 10/5/15 In Heavenly, PA, there is a food festival about to start, featuring the many Amish cooks of the community. Claire Weatherby, after her recent divorce, lives there with her aunt Diane, who owns/runs an inn. Robert Karble, a toy manufacturer, his wife Ann, and the factory’s public relations woman Melinda are among the guests. Robert is murdered during the festival’s first day after a PR memo is sent out stating that the firm would make Amish toys at the factory, not in Heavenly by Amish men as Robert had planned. The town is furious, feeling doublecrossed; the Amish devastated - they have run out of farmland & need jobs, like the rest of the country. The schematic drawings for the toys are stolen. Two toymakers are obvious suspects, Ann thinks the Amish toys were Melinda’s idea & is jealous as all getout, giving both a motive, but not so fast. Two other motives would be spoilers.
Shadows of Death - Jeanne M. Dams 10/2/15 Dorothy Martin & her husband retired Chief Constable Alan Nesbitt go to Orkney for a vacation, which turns into a murder investigation - the police are sidetracked by a terrorist threat. Archeologic excavations to be dug, paid for by an arrogant American, who is murdered, the local museum’s director framed by the chief archeologist, the director’s insane mother hid him then disappeared herself. Dorothy & Alan & their dog Watson find her, unraveling all the scams.