Murder in the Tea Leaves: A Blake Sisters Travel Mystery—Book 2

In Fielding’s entertaining sequel to 2021’s Murder in the Medina, Manhattanite Finley Blake, a freelance writer for the magazine Traveler’s Tales, lands a dream assignment to report on spending 48 hours in Sri Lanka. Her younger sister, Whitt, a London investment banker, accepts Finley’s invitation to join her there. The siblings are soon luxuriating in a fancy Colombo hotel, delighting in viewing elephants in their natural habitat, and playing the Murder Game, “a story-building pastime that the two had played for years when they used to travel with their parents,” involving concocting “intricate murder-mystery plots that involved the people they met during their travels, almost like a live version of Clue.” That diversion and Finlay’s working holiday turn serious after a fellow guest is found dead from unknown causes, her corpse hidden inside some machinery at a tea factory the sisters visited to learn about the country’s most famous export. Fielding skillfully balances detecting and globe-trotting, besides making her leads plausible amateur sleuths. Fans of Jennifer Alderson’s Travel Can Be Murder cozy mysteries will be hooked. (Self-published)