Death in an Ivory Tower: A Dotsy Lamb Travel Mystery

Hudgins’s enjoyable fifth Dotsy Lamb mystery (after 2012’s Death of a Second Wife) takes the globe-trotting historian to an academic conference at Oxford University’s St. Ormond’s College. The conference’s topic is Elizabethan England, and an opening dinner introduces the principal players: Larry Roberts, Dotsy’s dissertation adviser, momentarily irked at his student; biochemist Keith Bunsen, whose presence at a history conference Dotsy finds curious; and zealot Bram Fitzwaring, who’s determined to prove the unpopular theory that King Arthur was real. When the diabetic Fitzwaring later drops dead, the fatality is at first chalked up to hypoglycemia, but Dotsy is suspicious. If the Arthurian died of natural causes, why was his room trashed? When a family friend, also visiting England, is shot, Dotsy can’t help thinking the two events are connected—but how? Lots of local English color, a plethora of suspects, and a charming heroine make this travel cozy a delight. [em](June) [/em]