finished reading

For this fourth outing of the Marlow Murder Club, Judith, Suzie, and Becks are solving a mystery set on a Thames River cruise.  The suspects include members of the Marlow Amateur Dramatic Society and, well, there is drama along with mystery!  Judith, Suzie, and Becks have been specifically told by Tanika to not get involved in the investigation, so the trio finds ways to bend that edict.  This time, Suzie seems to cause the most chaos while Judith puts the pieces together.

This locked-room style mystery is clever--every suspect has a grudge against the victim plus a solid alibi.  And the MADS members are somewhat over-the-top, but, in all honesty, they are representative of people I've seen in my own town's community theater group: the grueling rehearsal schedule, the underappreciation for the technical director, and the diva behavior.

The chemistry between the three leads remains the best part of the series.  And I was kept guessing until the end!  The audio version is fantastic.

From the publisher:  

Verity Beresford is worried about her husband. Oliver didn’t come home last night so of course Verity goes straight to Judith Potts, Marlow’s resident amateur sleuth, for help. Oliver, founder of the Marlow Amateur Dramatic Society, had hired The Marlow Belle, a private pleasure cruiser, for an exclusive party with the MADS committee but no one remembers seeing him disembark. And then Oliver’s body washes up on the Thames with two bullet holes in him – it’s time for the Marlow Murder Club to leap into action.

Oliver was, by all accounts, a rather complicated chap with a reputation for bullying children during nativity play rehearsals, and he wasn’t short of enemies. Judith, Suzie, and Becks are convinced they’ll find his killer in no time. But things are not as they seem in the Marlow Amateur Dramatic Society, and this case is not so clear-cut after all. The gang will need to keep their wits about them to solve this case, otherwise a killer will walk free …