S.C. Perkins' Ancestry Detective mystery series is turning out to be delightful. Lucy Lancaster is one bright woman who, after the events in the first book in the series (Murder Once Removed), took a CPR class, a self-defense class, and went to a counselor. So many amateur sleuths never seem to take these precautions, so I always appreciate it when I see it happen. Lucy also keeps going to the police with the information she uncovers even though she's not being taken seriously.

Readers learn quite a bit about Lucy's grandfather in Lineage Most Lethal. It seems the old man has been keeping quite a few secrets under wraps. There are even codes to decipher which I always enjoy. Having helped my mother and grandmother with our family history, I was intrigued by Lucy's use of something called Soundex, a phonetic algorithm for indexing names by sound as pronounced in English. If my mother had known about Soundex, she might have been able to trace a very elusive family name. Who says you can't learn anything by reading mysteries?

World War II, spies, secret missions, microdots, codes, and a lead character who makes me smile. I can't wait to see what Lucy Lancaster gets up to in her next adventure.

(Review copy courtesy of the publisher and Net Galley)

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