THE LAST WORD

Is a writer’s workshop the nexus for murder?

That’s the question three sleuths have to answer before more names are added to the list of dead authors. Former BBC presenter Edwin Fitzgerald may be the oldest detective in England, but he and his business partner, Ukrainian math wizard and caregiver Natalka Kolisnyk, have solved several murders with some help from DI Harbinder Kaur. Natalka’s life partner, ex-monk Benedict Cole, owns the Coffee Shack in Shoreham, where they share an apartment with Natalka’s mother, who fled Ukraine while her son remained behind to fight. Edwin and Natalka are hired by two sisters whose romance-writing mother has just died—murdered, they insist, by her second husband. When Benedict’s friend Father Richard Fraser drops by with the news that his longtime friend Father Don led a double life, writing romances as Donna Parsons, and may have been murdered, it’s the first hint that someone may be killing writers. Intrigued, Natalka asks Harbinger to run some names through the police database. Sure enough, another dead author turns up. All the deaths have been put down to natural causes, but Edwin is suspicious when he finds ties they shared, especially attendance at a writer’s workshop at Battle House. After Edwin and Benedict sign up for a session, one of the attendees drowns in a lake on the property, reinforcing their feeling that something is very wrong.

Beautifully written and intricately plotted, with a surprisingly dystopian reason for murder.