MURDER AT THE CASTLE

A music festival in Wales is both moving and deadly.

Retired Chief Constable Alan Nesbitt and his sleuthing American wife, Dorothy Martin, have come to Wales to stay at a lovely B&B with their friends Nigel and Inga Evans. Although Nigel is a computer wonk, his first love is music, and he’s thrilled to have been invited to sing at the festival founded by renowned conductor Sir John Warner. Disaster strikes when one of the festival singers falls, or is pushed, to his death from a canal boat traveling over a high aqueduct. The much-disliked soloist suffers a similar fate when she takes a tumble from a high wall at the ruined castle where the festival is being held. Although the local police dismiss both deaths as unfortunate accidents, Alan and Dorothy share a strong feeling that they were clever murders. Appealing to them for help, Sir John reveals that the dead woman was his first wife, who had been declared legally dead after she apparently perished aboard a sinking ship. When the girlfriend and best friend of the man killed in the canal boat tragedy vanish, Dorothy, Alan and their friends pull out all the stops to discover the truth.

Dams, well-known for her classic British cozies (The Corpse of St James’s, 2012, etc.), supplements a solid mystery with current and historic details of the Welsh border area.