The Case of the Dotty Dowager

This underwhelming first in a new cozy series from Ace (The Corpse with the Sapphire Eyes and three other Cait Morgan mysteries) introduces the WISE Enquiries Agency, so named because its four female partners—Carol Hill, Christine Wilson-Smythe, Mavis MacDonald, and Annie Parker—hale from Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and England respectively. Mavis asserts that they are able to bring their own “national, as well as uber-national, sensibilities to bear upon a case,” but such sensibilities have no bearing on the puzzling case of Althea, Dowager Duchess of Chellingworth, who phones her son, Henry Twyst, in the middle of the night, to report a corpse in her dining room. But when Henry arrives at her home in Powys, Wales, he finds no trace of a body or evidence of an intruder. Only when Althea produces a bloodied hat she says was beside the cadaver does he take her claim at all seriously. Readers will hope for more memorable characters and sleuthing in the next installment. [em](July) [/em]