May 1, 2018
American Dorothy Martin, a former schoolteacher living in England with her husband, Alan, a retired Scotland Yard detective, keeps finding crimes to investigate?so many that by this point (this is the twentieth entry in the series) readers might wonder why Dorothy doesn't just hang out a shingle and become a professional PI. This latest mystery is a particularly vexing one for Dorothy and Alan: a married Muslim couple, who have come from Iraq to visit the cathedral town of Sherebury, has disappeared; soon they turn up in London, where it seems they were engaged in a terrorist plot. But Dorothy wonders, Is it possible they came to England not to commit a terrorist act but rather to stop one from being committed? The terrorism-related story line gives the book a bit of extra dramatic heft, and Dams makes the most of it, showing Dorothy at her inquisitive, resourceful, determined best. Fans of the series will be pleased to see this engaging heroine once more.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)
June 1, 2020
The cathedral and university town of Durham, England, is the quaint setting of Dams' twenty-third Dorothy Martin mystery, after Death in the Garden City (2020). Dorothy, an American, and her English husband, retired police officer Alan Nesbit, are getting on in years, a happy find in a genre filled with whippersnapper detectives. When they visit a friend, David Tregarth, in Durham, they are faced with a deadly puzzle to solve, as David's aunt, who has dementia, has been accused of murdering a fellow resident in her nursing home. She will be evicted from her sanctuary if the real killer?who is also the possible perpetrator of other crimes?isn't run to ground. Dorothy and Alan's investigation gives readers an inside glimpse of life in a medieval town that's now a tourist haven, while the author's tale-telling and dialogue?the back and forth of a comfortable couple is wonderfully depicted?will also serve to draw readers in. Dams' followers know what to expect and will be happy to find it here.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)