Felicia Grant never intended to return to Stamford, but an accident to her father finds her back in town and, as emergency cover, back at the auctioneer’s stand. The sale is packed solid, but Felicia is confused when a mysterious final lot appears – an old solid wardrobe. And she’s even more confused when her ex-husband shows up and dramatically opens it up. He was, apparently, hoping there would be treasure inside. But instead, there is a freshly murdered body…
With the local Chief Inspector proving to be rather ineffective, Felicia finds herself dragged further and further into the matter. But when her family is at risk, she will have to take matters into her own hands…
Cosy time again. This time, it’s because I’m off to Crime & Nourishment at Cambridge, where ten authors are going to squeeze into two hours to promote their new books, do a Q & A and sign copies. I’ve only come across one of the authors before – Nicola Upson – so I thought I’d educate myself a little more on some of the others. Hence Death At The Auction…
It’s something of a soap opera of a book – Felicia’s ex-husband competes with another love interest, for example – and I found at times that the plot was controlling the actions of the characters. For example, there are plenty of times when a suspect’s interrogation is interrupted, either by them or by other circumstance, or they just refuse to answer the police. If the interrogations had been a little firmer, some aspects of the plot would have been tied up a lot quicker. And also, I never quite understood how a room being very crowded enabled someone to be stabbed without anyone seeing them.
Having said that, I did like the central characters. I’d be a bit worried if every murder happened in an auction house, but looking at the blurbs for later books, the locations seem to move elsewhere.
I’m not sure I’ll be back for more – I prefer a murderer to be more present in the story than this one – but if you’re looking for a fun cosy, rather than a head-scratching mystery, you could do a lot worse.
