Deadly Inheritance: An Ursula Grandison Mystery

Set in 1903 England, this series debut from Laurence (The Mermaid’s Feast) starts stronger than it ends. Wealthy Chauncey Seldon has retained fellow American Ursula Grandison to accompany his younger daughter, Belle, on a visit to her married sister, Helen, at Mountstanton House in Somerset. Ursula must also find out why Helen isn’t using her dowry to restore her decaying mansion of a home. She finds the household on edge, with “currents and cross-currents” of tension. Helen is far from pleased to see Ursula, after a past incident not detailed at the outset. And the atmosphere is hardly improved when Ursula literally stumbles on the corpse of a missing servant, Polly Brown, and suspects that Polly didn’t die from an accidental fall. Laurence does a good job of setting the stage, making the undertones of dysfunctional family dynamics a source of tension. But the plot limps toward an end that many readers may feel wasn’t worth the journey. (Aug.)