A Snapshot of Murder: A Kate Shackleton Mystery

Set in 1928, Brody’s well-crafted 10th Kate Shackleton mystery (after 2018’s Death in the Stars) takes amateur sleuth Kate, a WWI widow, and other members of the Leeds Photographic Society to Haworth, Yorkshire, for the opening of the new Brontë Museum. Once the merry band of shutterbugs arrives at their destination, the air fairly crackles with the anticipation of murder. As Kate notes, “Seven of us went on that photographic outing. Six of us returned.” The one who doesn’t return is Tobias, the group’s disagreeable chairman, who has a dark past. The simmering tension gradually heats up to a rolling boil. Brody dresses this elegant mystery in literary history while accenting the cultural mores of the tumultuous 1920s. She also convincingly renders the secrets and vices of her well-rounded characters. An intelligent and complex woman, Kate is someone readers will want to see a lot more of. Agent: Rebecca Winfield, Rebecca Winfield Literary. (Apr.)