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The Herring in the Library Reviewed By Lavanya Karthik Of Bookpleasures.com
- By Lavanya Karthik
- Published July 3, 2011
- Crime & Mystery
Lavanya Karthik
Reviewer
Lavanya Karthik: Lavanya is from Mumbai, India and is a licensed
architect and consultant in environmental management. She lives in
Mumbai with her husband and six-year old daughter. She loves reading
and enjoys a diverse range of authors across genres.
Click Here To Purchase The Herring in the Library: The 3rd Ethelred and Elsie Mystery (Ethelred and Elsie Mysteries)
Author: L. C. Tyler
Publisher: Felony and Mayhem Press
ISBN: 978-1-934609-76-7
Third in the popular Ethelred and Elsie mystery series, The Herring in the Library, like its prequels , is wildly funny, well plotted and keeps its best surprises for the very end.
Ethelred Tressider divides his writing life between three very mediocre series and, in the wake of a messy divorce, finds himself battling both writer’s block and his bossy chocaholic agent, Elsie. The duo accept an invitation to dinner from Robert ‘Shagger’ Muntham, a college chum of Ethelred’s who seems to have it all – a successful career, a stately home, a title and a delectable trophy wife. But things soon get murkier when his lordship is found strangled to death in the library. Suicide, rule the police, though there is no suicide note. Murder, cries Lady Muntham, who easily persuades a besotted Tressider to wield his superior insight into the criminal mind and help investigate this classic closed door mystery.
Rather helpfully, a great clutter of clues lands in Tressider’s lap – secret passages, mysterious men in blue, beanies conveniently dropped in flower beds. It should be an open and shut case, of course, if only Elsie wouldn’t butt in. It doesn’t help that each of the other dinner guests seem to have secrets of their own, and the kind of unpleasant alliances with Shagger that might well have driven them to murder. Then Robert leaves Tressider a clue – in verse, while the newly bereaved Lady Muntham seems likely to inherit not just his wealth but his nickname as well. And meanwhile, what of the book Tressider has begun writing, that seems to eerily reflect the goings on in his own life, complete with a hapless hero and an interfering female sidekick with a penchant for sweets?
The Herring in the Library had me hooked and giggling uncontrollably from page one. It has a great pace, crackling humour and well written characters (Elsie, of course, being the highlight) What makes the book even funnier is they way it weaves between Ethelred’s and Elsie’s point of view, offering often widely varying accounts of the same events. Ethelred is no Holmes, Elsie not the best agent either, but together they rustle up some great sleuthing chemistry.
Click Here To Purchase The Herring in the Library: The 3rd Ethelred and Elsie Mystery (Ethelred and Elsie Mysteries)