Paradise Walk: A Lizzie Manning Mystery

Malloy loads her less than suspenseful second Lizzie Manning mystery (after 2009’s The Wandering Heart) with literary history, not all of which is relevant. British scholar Alison Kent has inherited a reliquary holding what are said to be the bones of St. Thomas à Becket as well as the journal of an ancestor of hers known as “the Weaver,” who might be the model for Chaucer’s Wife of Bath. Too frail to make the journey herself, Alison hires American history professor Lizzie Manning to walk the pilgrimage route and glean further evidence for a scholarly publication. Lizzie is thrilled to find the Weaver’s secret mark on artworks at key sites, but when she uncovers a generations-old conspiracy to hide and protect Becket’s real bones, she puts both of their lives in peril. This unconventional mystery will most satisfy those who enjoy intellectual puzzles like Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time. (Nov.)