cover image Beer and Skittles: A Little Maine Murder

Beer and Skittles: A Little Maine Murder

B. J. Morison. Thorndike Press, $0 (256pp) ISBN 978-0-89621-094-3

Elizabeth Lamb Worthington, the precocious but proper 11-year-old sleuth in Champagne and a Gardener and Port and a Star Border, prevails again in this enchanting new adventure. It is summer in Northeast Harbor, Maine, as the ""old money'' families of Boston and Philadelphia spend their holiday in leisurely tea-and-gossip. Among them flit Elizabeth Lamb and her cousin, Persis, amusedly taking note of the genteel backbiting, the bombastic verses of irascible General Alison, the weird behavior of the houseman, Ludwig Vonn, as well as vague hints of blackmail and drug smuggling. When they find the body of an unidentified young man washed up on the beach, the two young women turn their talents to solving what they are sure was not an accidental death. Soon, more corpses turn up, and the amateur sleuths find that the case holds more intrigueand danger than they're up for. Eccentric but scintillating conversation and a full, lively portrait of families intertwined in an ongoing battle of witsqualities reminiscent of Jane Austenmake this mystery highly entertaining. October