Dandy Gilver and a Bothersome Number of Corpses

The professional becomes personal in Agatha-winner McPherson’s slow-moving seventh 1920s mystery featuring Edinburgh PI Dandy Gilver (after 2012’s Dandy Gilver and an Unsuitable Day for a Murder). Now one half of the detective agency Gilver and Osborne, Dandy is horrified to learn that girlhood friend Fleur Lipscott, the youngest of three sisters of a family Dandy has always admired, might be in deep trouble. Older sisters Pearl and Aurora fear that Fleur is about to bolt from St. Columba’s, the Wigtownshire school where she teaches. Dandy travels to St. Columba’s, where her being mistaken for a new teacher allows her to infiltrate the school. Dandy soon realizes that instructors are quitting, being fired, or disappearing at an alarming rate. The discovery of an unidentified woman’s body raises the stakes. Dandy’s droll conversations with her charmingly stuffy husband provide some needed levity in this overly convoluted cozy. Lisa Moylett, Coombs Moylett Literary Agency. (Nov.)