"The Author's Guide to Murder," A Review

As many of you know, Beatriz Williams is my daughter-in-law. Most of what she writes – and her good friends and co-authors – falls into the category of historical romance. This is different. It is clever, witty with a plot that would be the envy of Dorothy Sayers, Ngaio Marsh or Agatha Christie. If you like mysteries and wit, this is your book.

 

Happy Thanksgiving. After a hearty meal, find an armchair next to a roaring fire, with a single malt near-by, and let your mind wander to the island of Kinloch off the Scottish coast.

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Burrowing into Books

“The Author’s Guide to Murder,” Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, & Karen White

November 23, 2024

 

“Americans. Why did they always have to be Americans?”

                                                                                                      The Author’s Guide to Murder, 2024

 

This fun-filled mystery, which takes place on a remote Scottish island, will keep you guessing and have you smiling, as it combines elements of Agatha Christie, Jonathon Swift, and Will Rogers.

 

Like Agatha Christie, who plotted her crime stories starting with the murder, this story begins with the crime scene. Like Jonathon Swift who once wrote, “Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own,”^[1] the story is laden with clever innuendos. For example, the fictional Kinloch Castle, scene of the murder, derives from a real clan’s name whose motto is Non Degener (not degenerate), a deliciously inappropriate motto. Like Will Rogers who infused his books with one-liners, the story is comedic. There is a sheep named “Beatrice,” a Sheep Dog named “Loren,” a writer of romance novels named Karyn Black, and an editor named Rachelle, “brilliant and well-shod,” who, out of fondness, is named for the three women’s real editor, Rachel Kahan.

 

The story centers around a writers retreat at Kinloch Castle, to which three American novelists have been invited: Kat de Noir, Cassie Pringle, and Emma Endicott. They know one another, having met some time earlier at Yaddo, a retreat for artists in Saratoga Springs. And they have a secret in common, but are not really friends, at least not at the novel’s start. Their host, as we learn on the opening page, is the murder victim, Brett Saffron Presley. 

 

A few other characters populate the story, well-drawn and engaging: Detective Chief Inspector (DCI) Euan Macintosh; his sister – the only medical professional on the island – Fiona; the castle’s factotum Calum MacDougal (owner of Beatrice); his mother, the housekeeper Morag; and Archie Kinloch, the financially-strapped Laird (and owner of Loren) who has rented his castle to Mr. Presley.

 

A passage that caught my attention, which will surprise no one, but which is indicative of the three authors’ humor and of how much fun they had writing the book. Emma speaks of the past, how it matters, and how, “sooner or later the past will find you.” Kat responds “dismissively:” “You stole that from Beatriz Williams’s website.”

 

This is my first write-up of a mystery, and mysteries are best kept mysterious, so this is short. As Will Rogers once said: “Lettin’ the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier’n puttin’ it back.”^[2]

 

So, pick up a copy, put up your feet, a glass of Lagavulin in hand, and enjoy a couple of hours of fun. And you will watch this mystery unfold, as neatly as if Hercule Poirot or Jane Marple were on the case.

"The Lost Summers of Newport," a Novel

                                                                   Sydney M. Williams

Burrowing into Books

The Lost Summers of Newport

Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, Karen White

June 4, 2022

 

“Like Sprague Hall itself, you never knew

what kind of rot lay behind the façade.”

                                                                                                                The Lost Summers of Newport

 

Like a Nova, Newport, with its enormous, newly-built mansions, exploded onto the social scene during the late 19^th Century; then that Gilded Age faded away in a matter of two or three generations.

 

This is the fourth novel written by three friends who, independently, are all New York Times best-selling authors. (A caveat – Beatriz is married to my oldest son.) As in their previous novels, this story unfolds over three time periods, in this case at Sprague Hall – 1899, 1957 and 2019 – on Newport’s Bellevue Avenue. While one of Newport’s “mansions,” Sprague Hall is not as imposing as its neighbors: It is “…tucked between Marble House and Rosecliff…a less significant house perched near a small curve of coast with the improbable name of Sheep Point Cove.”

 

This story of Newport’s extravagances and secrets is told through the voices of three young women, representing the three time periods: 1899 – Ellen (“…hoping the tremble in her voice would be taken for awe, and not fear.”) has been hired to give singing lessons to Maybelle Sprague. 1957 – Lucky (“Teddy was the only person in Newport who knew what Lucky really thought of Minty Appleton.”) is the Italian-born granddaughter of the American-born Princess di Conti. 2019 – Andie (“…it was clear I had traveled more than just the thirty-three miles separating my hometown of Cranston, Rhode Island from the coastal resort of Newport.”) is a young, producer on Makeover Mansions, a reality TV show about restoring some of America’s most lavish houses.

 

While chronology is important and the reader must keep track of multiple characters and generations, it is through Andie – her persistence with the remaining members of the Sprague family – that the mysteries of the house and its occupants (past and present) are unraveled. With chapters alternating between the three time periods, we begin to understand the family tensions and sense the secrets that underlie them. 

 

The stories of the three women blend as the reader proceeds, at an ever-quickening pace. Like the orchestral piece, Maurice Ravel’s Boléro, the novel builds toward a crescendo. This reader found his pulse quickening and his eyes moving ever faster down the page, as the story reached its climax, which was both surprising and satisfying.

 

The second season of Julian Fellowes’ The Gilded Age has been filming in Newport, making The Lost Summers of Newport timely. Incidentally, this novel will show up as number 15 on the June 5^th (tomorrow) New York Timesbest-selling list, possibly the first time that a novel authored by three women has made that list.