The World’s Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant

Tully, a pseudonym for A Taste of Power author Elisabeth Elo, moves from thrillers to cozy territory with this amusing fair-play mystery. Olivia Blunt, a 25-year-old former fact-checker for an online news bureau, has come to the Gramercy Park apartment of 60-year-old Aubrey Merritt, the most famous PI in America, with hopes of snagging a position as her assistant. Impressed by Olivia’s sleuthing bona fides, the imperious Aubrey agrees to take her on. The pair’s first client is Haley Summersworth, whose mother, Victoria, died from an early-morning fall from her balcony after celebrating her 65th birthday at a resort she owned on Vermont’s Lake Champlain. The Burlington police assume Victoria died by suicide, but Haley doesn’t buy it. Soon, a skeptical Aubrey and determined Olivia are off to Vermont, where suspects abound, including resort employees and Victoria’s society friends. Tully juggles a near-overload of characters and red herrings, but she pulls it off, largely thanks to Olivia’s spirited first-person narration and the book’s focus on her fraught mentor/mentee relationship with Aubrey. Readers will be eager for a sequel. Agent: Esmond Harnsworth, Aevitas Creative Management. (July)