My new season of Series-ous Reading shows that Murder is a Must

 Welcome to another season of Series-ous Reading, where books connected by one writer and genre are given their just due.

The theme this year is Sisters in Sleuthing, a look at women from different time periods use their innate skills to solve those pesky mysteries that practically fall in their lap.

Our starting point is Marty Wingate’s Murder is a Must,  the second entry in her First Edition Library series. Set in modern day Bath, Hayley Burke is the curator of a Golden Age mystery collection created by the late Lady Georgiana Fowling(who also wrote a few sleuthing stories herself!).

As Hayley is working on a way to expand the influence of the collection with a program of guest speakers, plus an exhibition of Lady Fowling’s life and times. 

To that end, she snags a key spot at the renowned Charlotte gallery and a manager she all too well, Oona Atherton.

While working with Oona is difficult at best(as Hayley remembers from their time together at the Jane Austen Center), she is very efficient and capably creative. Also, a possible unexpected bonus to the exhibit may be available if only it can be found! 

Thanks to a letter left by Lady Fowling, there may be a first edition of Dorothy L. Sayers’ Murder Must Advertise that is signed by the author and several iconic mystery writers of that time in the collection. With Oona dropping hints about the book before it has been located, interest in the upcoming exhibit abounds.

Unfortunately, that attention proves deadly as Oona dies from a fall down a spiral staircase, a demise scarily much like the one that the novel in question is looking into:

As Hayley manages to find a replacement for Oona(the rather over the top Zeno Berryfield) while still searching for the book, several more incidents occur that make her wonder why this project feels doomed to end before it truly begins. Yet, will that fatal feeling take another life?

I really enjoyed the debut title  in this series, The Bodies in the Library, and happy to say that it’s just as grand a time with this second outing. Hayley is a charming leading lady with an excellent supporting cast such as the rather unflappable secretary Mrs. Woolgar and current love interest Val, a college professor who has a young police detective Kenny Pye in his writing class.

I do love the fact that Hayley isn’t totally read up on most of the Golden Age mystery writers in the collection and winds up picking up the particularly themed work in question.

It makes her very relatable and already has me waiting for a copy of Murder Must Advertise to add to my TBR to boot!

Marty Wingate has a third book in this series that’s been recently released and despite the title, The Librarian Always Rings Twice, the plot is not a tribute to James M. Cain’s classic thriller. Instead, it is a tip of the hat to a Daphne Du Maurier novel called Frenchman’s Creek. So glad to have more First Edition Mysteries to look forward to:

As to my next selection, we head back to the England of the 1930s in Rhys Bowen’s Heirs and Graces.

 Her Royal Spyness, Lady Georgiana Rannoch is once again given a special assignment from the Queen. At first, it doesn’t seem too daunting as she asked to be the unofficial mentor to the reluctant heir of a grand estate.

When the current head of the household is found with a literal knife in his back, Georgiana adds to her plate of duties solving this murder before an innocent man is served up to the gallows.

So far, the book is a sheer delight with a nice bit of Downton Abbey drama for fun flavor that I am eager to devour. A bookish bon appetit to be sure!: