Murder at the Brightwell

Fans of plucky female amateur sleuths will welcome Amory Ames, the heroine of Weaver’s pleasing debut set in 1932 England. Amory’s rake of a husband, Milo, a man she “loves and hates in equal proportions,” has just returned from Monte Carlo, where he was reported to have spent time with other women. Meanwhile, Gil Trent, the man Amory was engaged to before Milo swept her off her feet five years earlier, invites her to join him and others in a large party planning to stay a week at the Brightwell Hotel in Kent. There Gil hopes Amory will help persuade his 23-year-old sister to stop seeing a man he deems unsuitable. Amory accepts, but she soon turns detective after a fellow hotel guest turns up dead and another is suspected of foul play. Despite the routine sleuthing and predictable love triangle, the affable Amory could carry a series, though plausibly involving her in future murder cases will require some imagination. [em]Agent: Ann Collette, Rees Literary Agency. (Oct.) [/em]