Death at a Scottish Wedding by Lucky Connelly is the second book in the Scottish Isle Mysteries that began with An American in Scotland. It is October in Scotland and the good doctor is finding life in Sea Isle, Scotland, quite a bit colder and a lot snowier than her old Seattle neighborhood. It has been three months since she arrived and took over the medical practice. She loves the place and the people. The weather- not so much.
Not only is she
the doctor, she is also the coroner. That means she works with the local
constable of Sea Isle, Ewan Campbell. He is also the mayor, laird, and her host
the next few days at his castle known as Morrigan Castle. It is one of his many
family homes. It has at 94 rooms. It has a support staff and generators for
power and should be a beautiful place for a wedding.
It was until
folks started dying during a major snowstorm.
Cutoff from the
world, what-follows is a locked room style cozy mystery read where while the
wedding moves forward, it does take a backseat to the deaths. Deaths that are
clearly murders. The question is who is killing and why?
Death at a
Scottish Wedding
is a fun mystery that is a good read, but could have been better. Nearly every chapter
has a hook at the end to encourage the reader to move forward and continue
reading. Numerous times the hook is having a character or characters hear a
noise and then our heroine, or somebody else, screams from the fright. It is
done so much, it become laughable. Amazingly, none of the screamers ever need a
throat lozenge.
We are also told
again and again that Ewan and good doctor don’t mix well with each other. We
already very much know that from the first book. Clearly the ongoing annoyance
will lead to romance. The only question is when. But, in the meantime, the fact
that they clash is pounded ad nauseum in the first half of this book as is
other repetitive information.
While the above
issues are strong in the first half of the book, they eventually stop in the
second half of the book as the pressure of the situation ramps up considerably.
The reader is left with a good cozy mystery that easily could have been way
better, but is pretty good overall.
As always, one
should read the first book in a series. That fact is very true here. If one chooses
to start here, understand the previous events are well detailed in the begging chapters
of Death at the Scottish Wedding.
The Amazon Associate image purchase box is not
working so please pick up your copy here.
My reading copy
came by way of the publisher, Crooked Lane Books, through NetGalley with no
promise of a review.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2024
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