Murder at a Scottish Wedding

December 5, 2022
Hall’s intriguing fourth Scottish Shire mystery (after 2022’s Murder at a Scottish Social) opens at Old Nairn Kirk, where Lydia Barron, the best friend of Paislee Shaw, the owner of a sweater and yarn shop in Nairn, Scotland, is about to marry her old-money love, Corbin Smythe. In the church’s dressing room, Lydia panics when she can’t find the box containing the heirloom Luckenbooth brooch, a traditional Scottish love token that Corbin has given her. Matron of honor Paislee helps her search to no avail. Shortly before the ceremony, Felice, a Smythe cousin, rushes out of the church and takes a fatal fall down the stairs to the street. Inside Felice’s hand is the missing brooch. Intuitive Paislee, an experienced amateur sleuth, thinks Felice’s death was no accident and neither is Corbin’s subsequent disappearance. Hall expertly juggles multiple story lines, of which the one involving the fraught Shaw family saga will most engage readers. That Detective Inspector Zeffer may have pertinent new details on Paislee’s long-lost uncle, Craigh Shaw, lends counterpoint to the murder inquiry. Fans of all things Scottish will have fun. Agent: Evan Marshall, Evan Marshall Agency.

December 15, 2022
A good luck charm brings anything but to an anxious bride in the Scottish seaside town of Nairn. Paislee Shaw's best friend, Lydia Barron, is at church, about to marry Corbin Smythe--until the disappearance of the Luckenbooth brooch, a Smythe family heirloom, throws everything into disarray. Corbin's snobbish stepmother, Mary, already dislikes Lydia and has insisted that the marriage will bring bad luck. The brooch turns up in the hands of Corbin's cousin Felice, but instead of exulting in the discovery, she says that she can't see and falls down the church stairs, breaking her neck. Of course the wedding is postponed; of course Mary and her spoiled daughters use the time to drive a wedge between Lydia and Corbin; and of course Felice's death turns out to be murder. Paislee has her hands full with her yarn shop and her grandpa Angus, who fears that his son Craigh, who's gone missing from an oil rig, may be in deep trouble. Despite all these commitments, Lydia begs Paislee, who's had prior experience with murder, to help even as the police warn them to let the authorities handle the case. Handsome DI Zeffer, who's worked with Paislee before, is more interested in finding Craigh even though the brooch was covered in strychnine apparently meant for Lydia. It turns out that Craigh had been getting himself out of trouble by working undercover for Scotland Yard, but now he's stopped contacting them, and both Scotland Yard and some very nasty crooks are after him. Paislee does everything in her power to help Lydia, whose marital hopes are dimming. Down-to-earth characters and two mysteries to solve add up to a solid read.

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