Search - Death of a Cozy Writer (Arthur St. Just, Bk 1)

#1 St. Just mystery. Adrian Beauclerk-Fisk is a writer of cozy British mysteries, and he's also an absolute beast. Pompous, phony, and cruel to his family, frequently changing his will in favor of whichever of his children has momentarily pleased him (or displeased him the least), he decides to have some real fun by inviting his four children to his wedding. They are aghast of course, seeing a threat to their inheritances, but they all head toward his manor, figuratively attempting to elbow their way into his favor and hopefully talk him out of this marriage to an obvious gold digger. (It takes one to know one!)

Then Sir Adrian drops the bombshell that his marriage is a done deal, that he and Violet are already man and wife and that his will has (yet again) been changed--but he doesn't say how. Shortly thereafter, Sir Adrian's eldest child Ruthven is brutally murdered, and it's not long before he follows his son to the afterlife. Just about everyone has motive to kill one or another of them, so who dunnit?

I admit that I was surprised by the ending, but to be honest, I didn't much care by that point. The book started very slowly, and I nearly gave it up since by the time I hit page 100 (1/3 of the way through the book) there had not yet been a murder, nor had we met DCI St. Just, our intrepid hero. There was just too much set-up, and in reflecting back, the set-up didn't really give many clues to the murderer.

Once St. Just entered the scene, things did improve. I like him, and Sgt. Fear too, and wish that his character had been more developed. There is some wry humor that I found amusing, but the overall package of this book was just mediocre to me. I will likely read the next one, but I've deleted it from my PBS wishlist and just added it to my library list. If St. Just develops further in that book I would say the series has promise.

I found this book to be slow moving in the beginning......The personalities of Detective Chief Inspector St.Just and Detective Sergeant Fear need to be developed, along with some insight into their private lives. I will read the next installment to see if there is more revealed to the reader about them. I did not figure out "whodunnit"...I do not think there were enough clues for the reader... I am still glad I read it.....