Melody of Murder

December 12, 2016
Cameron’s third cozy (after 2015’s Out Comes the Evil) featuring pub owner Alex Duggins and her love interest, veterinarian Tony Harrison, won’t do much for readers not previously invested in these underdeveloped leads. Alex returned home to the Cotswolds village of Folly-on-Weir, following her divorce and the death of her infant daughter. Five year’s later, she’s now considering placing a memorial bench for her daughter in a local churchyard. While visiting the churchyard, Alex enjoys hearing the singing and piano playing of a woman inside the church. After the music ends abruptly, Alex enters the church, where she’s horrified to find a dead woman, later identified as 22-year-old Laura Quillam, lying underneath the piano. The police soon classify the death as a possible homicide, and Alex, who is wracked with guilt at having been so near at the fatal instant, once again plays amateur sleuth. The Quillam family’s dysfunctions provide ample room for speculation as to motive, but none of the characters makes much of an impression, and the climax is fairly melodramatic.

April 15, 2016
Elyan Quillam is a brilliant pianist, but his domineering father's insistence on running the young man's career is causing problems in the family. Elyan's sister, Laura, a talented singer who suffers from heart problems, and Elyan's stepmother, a violinist, have been pushed aside to make sure that Elyan's future as a world-class pianist takes priority. When Elyan's father announces that he's rented a house in the tiny Cotswold village of Folly-on-Weir and that he plans to move the family there so Elyan can focus on his upcoming world tour, Elyan is distressed. Shortly after the family arrives, local pub owner and amateur sleuth Alex Duggins discovers the dead body of Laura in the local church. The tragedy shocks the small village, especially since it's one of several brutal crimes there over the past few yearscrimes that Alex and her boyfriend, veterinarian Tony Harrison, have solved. While the police scratch their heads, Alex and Tony begin to trail the killer. A well-plotted mystery with an engaging sleuths and a fascinating frame story detailing the underside of the classical-music world.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

April 1, 2016
The family of a celebrated young pianist that's betaken itself to Alex Duggins' Cotswolds village over the pianist's strenuous objections must add sudden death to its other woes. How do you get to Wigmore Hall? Practice, practice, practice. That's all Elyan Quillam, 18, hears from his bullying stepfather, Percy Quillam, who's dedicated his life to making his second wife's son famous and miserable. The refrain is echoed by Sebastian Carstens, Elyan's teacher; by Wells Giglio, his agent; and, in a minor key, by Sonia Quillam, the mother who gave up a promising career as an orchestral violinist to marry Percy. Given all this single-minded pressure, it's no wonder that Elyan's stepsister, Laura, gets lost in the shuffle, with nary an encouraging word about the blues singing she loves so much. The drama is intensified by Percy's news that he's rented Green Friday, a house in Folly-on-Weir, uprooting both his children from their support network in London. After a prologue setting the stage by detailing all these developments, both the characters and the story seem to go into cardiac arrest when the scene shifts to the Cotswolds. Alex Duggins, a graphic artist who owns the local pub, the Black Dog, is delighted to hear an unknown woman's voice singing the blues inside St. Anselm's, but her pleasure turns to horror when she discovers Laura Quillam's body inside the church soon after the music has ended. Unfortunately, following Alex (Out Comes the Evil, 2015, etc.) as she draws out the newcomers is a lot less interesting than following the Quillams firsthand, and the only way Cameron develops the plot is by offering another unexpected fatality. As for the heroine's sleuthing prowess, the man who loves her puts it best: "You haven't done all that much, but you do show up whenever something's happening."

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