When Dorothy Martin is invited to stay with friends on the Scottish island of Iona, she is thrilled; less so when her friends have to postpone their arrival due to illness, nevertheless Dorothy is happy to travel by herself to the far-flung island. Having forgotten her key to the cottage, she must first find accommodations on the tiny island. Fortunately, there is room at one small hotel, which is otherwise filled with religious folks from Chicago - all from different Christian churches (and one rabbi), the group has been selected for a pilgrimage visit to this holy place. Unfortunately, they don’t like each other at all, and when Dorothy sees one of them fall to his death from a slippery rock in a cave, she cannot help but think someone in that group must be involved somehow…. This is the third book in the Dorothy Martin series, which features an ex-pat American widow living in England and finding herself involved in murder in various corners of the UK. I was not terribly impressed with this entry in the series, especially as she expresses doubts about the sexuality of some characters (like it’s any of her business) and is quick to decide that the only Jew on the entire island is guilty of murder; but at least those matters are resolved in the end. This is a series I’ve been picking up when feeling a need to read a cozy; it’s middling as far as the writing and plotting goes, but it does scratch that itch, so a very mild recommendation from me. ( )

Dorothy is offered the opportunity to holiday in a cottage on Iona with friends from London, but at the last minute they are unable to join her and she goes alone. She meets up with a most unusual group of Americans who end up staying at the same hotel as her (after she has discovered that she has left the key to the holiday cottage at home). And then she witnesses the most unpopular of them falling to his death at Fingal's Cave.

And then Iona is hit with a monster storm and they are all stranded.

Dorothy becomes convinced that somehow the death that she witnessed was a murder, and that all the factors point to a Jewish Rabbi as the perpetrator. The problem is that she has become very friendly with him and cannot believe that her judgement can be so wrong.

This story is largely without the presence of Chief Constable Alan Nesbitt who has gone off to a police conference in Brussels. She is desperate to talk to him.

Unfortunately this plot feels a bit pedestrian. It is a bit of a travelogue. It also focuses on Dorothy's tendency to see murder everywhere. ( )

I am enjoying reading this series, but sometimes Dorothy Martin does act a bit silly. I like my heroines to have some sense, but running away into an uninhabited area of the island followed by the suspect was not smart when she could easily have gone to where there were other people. And then Alan arrives from Belgium in a helicopter to the rescue. As I am Dorothy Martin's age I do find her frailties a bit overdone at times as well, but I certainly admire her spirit. I will keep reading the series and hope this one is the weakest. ( )

The (American) author's Scottish characters didn't seem to be talking quite like Scottish people; the busload of "Christian" tourists - supposedly chosen as the best of their respective denominations in Chicago - were almost without exception nasty, all in different ways, to the point where (a) it was unbelievable that this lot was the best ... even in Chicago (b) one didn't want to read about them and (c) the presence of a few pleasant low Anglicans hardly served to dispel suspicion that the author had some kind of agenda; and the "murder mystery" was a pretty thin plot. On the plus side, the author did describe the island of Iona very well and has a firm understanding of how the weather and the problems of transportation control island life in the Hebrides. ( )

Signed by the author ( )