Grandad, There’s a Head on the Beach: A Jimm Juree Mystery

Cotterill effortlessly merges murder and mirth in his second light mystery featuring crime reporter Jimm Juree (after 2011’s Killed at the Whim of a Hat). Juree, who has reluctantly joined her eccentric family in rural Thailand, channels Bertie Wooster on making a grim find: “It’s always a bother to decide who to tell when you find a head on the beach.” Soon after her discovery, she runs afoul of two thugs from the Southern Rescue Mission Foundation, a questionable charitable organization “whose duty it was to facilitate the journey of the soul to a better place.” The SRMers remind Juree that she didn’t see anything, a threat that only emboldens her to dig deeper. Impressively, the author manages to insert a serious human rights problem amid the larking around without hitting a false note, and is on track to duplicate the acclaim and commercial success of his Dr. Siri series (Slash and Burn, etc.). (June)