Dorothy Martin’s neighbour and best friend, Jane Langland, is upset when Bill, an old friend of hers, goes missing; not only is he not the type to disappear suddenly, but the two of them were old lovers, reunited after a lifetime away and planning to marry. Jane is not a demonstrative woman, so Dorothy knows that her friend is very worried indeed; when Bill is found dead in a tunnel below the local museum where he worked, Dorothy is loathe to believe it was due to natural causes, and when Bill’s assistant is assaulted in the same museum, she knows that it was not…. I’ve been reading the Dorothy Martin series for some time now, but it is only with this entry, the ninth in the series, that I finally started seeing Dorothy as a whole person rather than a collection of attributes and eccentricities. The writing is crisper in this book than previously, and the author has finally stopped (more or less) mentioning how Dorothy is an ex-pat American trying to get used to the strange language and habits of the English. The final reveal at the very end of the book was perhaps a coincidence too far, but it had no bearing on the main mystery and so can be forgiven. I think one might do best to start with this book and then work backwards (if the reader wishes) to the earlier, less believable novels in the series; recommended. ( )

Jane Langland is Dorothy Martin's neighbor and best friend. When Jane's gentleman friend, Bill Fanshawe, disappears just before Christmas, apparently from the town museum of which he is curator, Dorothy and Jane launch a search for him. They're convinced that the police will make assumptions about his disappearance based solely on his age and will lose precious time looking in the wrong places. In the course of the investigation, Dorothy digs into Bill's past as a WWII aviator.

I didn't enjoy this book as much as some of the others I've read in this series. The mystery seemed to be constructed backwards. Instead of fitting clues together to form a theory, Dorothy started with a theory and then found clues to support it. I did enjoy the WWII aspect of the plot and for once I found myself wishing that the author had used flashbacks to tell that part of the story. ( )

It's getting close to Christmas season in Sherebury. The town museum's curator is missing. Dorothy Martin then finds his assistant in the museum with a bump on his head. She calls the police and begins exploring the museum and finds the curator dead of natural causes in a tunnel under the museum with a mysterious letter in his hand. Dorothy knows there is something not quite right and sets out to investigate. She talks to many of the curator's World War II associates to try to get to the bottom of the case. Another charming installment in this series. ( )

Fans of the Dorothy Martin series (and I am certainly one) will probably be happy with this book, at least until the last few pages. It is always good to be back with Dorothy and her husband and their friend Jane.

The hard part about reviewing this is that I don't want to reveal the plot. This is not one of the best of the series. There are a few logical holes which I would probably be willing to forget completely if I didn't find the denouement of the mystery so annoying. The windup of the entire book is a little hard to buy, but so charming that I'm happy to accept it, expecting to see the welcome addition of another likeable character.

The resolution of the mystery is very disappointing to me. I think that Dams may realize that she is on shaky ground and that is why she has worked so hard, a little too hard, to make the murderer unsympathetic - otherwise, readers might be wanting to help pay the defense attorney, er, barrister. I wonder why she developed such a plot in the first place. I cannot like the characters'(Dams') argument that heinous crimes become irrelevant with time, and that justice is unnecessary if the perpetrator's later personal life is disappointing. Extenuating circumstances are for the judge to consider when passing sentence, not a reason for the police to fail to make arrests. The murderer suffered disappointments too - why not gloss over the recent crimes as well? Only at the last do the police remark that it would probably not be possible to prove the earlier crime - it sounds more like a rationalization than a reason.

If this were the first Dorothy Martin that I had read I probably wouldn't read another, and I would certainly have given it a lower rating. Since I really enjoyed the rest of the books, I'll assume that that series are always a little uneven, and look hopefully forward to the next installment. ( )