Mrs. Malory: Detective in Residence

The Booklist review above has it right: nothing outstanding, but pleasant reading. This one delivers exactly what people read cozy mysteries for: good plotting, a sense of time and place, a logical series of clues, a sufficient collection of suspects, a likeable amateur detective. I have two criticisms: First, some of the characters could have been drawn more vividly. I found myself several times leafing backwards through the book so I could remember just who John Smith or Mary Jones was, when they appear on the scene for the first time in 75 pages. Secondly, the final solution of the mystery depends on facts that are unknown to either the reader or the sleuth until the last 10 pages or so. That is generally considered unfair in mystery-writing, but I must say it doesn't seem at all egregious here. It is not one of those irritating cases in which the hero notices a paper clip on the floor of the library, uses it as the decisive clue, and reveals the presence of the paper clip only on the last page when he is triumphantly announcing the solution. In this book, the decisive information is revealed to us at the same time as it is to the heroine.So we come back to my original conclusion. If you like cozy mysteries in general, you almost certainly will like this one. If you don't like them, you probably aren't reading this review in the first place!

Many of Hazel Holt's books have alternative titles, `Mrs Malory Wonders Why ` was originally titled `Superfluous Death', `Mrs Malory, Detective in Residence' was originally `Murder on Campus' and `Mrs Malory and the Only Good Lawyer' was `The Only Good Lawyer...' (the last subtly different!). -SW