Murder in House

July 6, 2009
In British author Heley’s fine 10th Ellie Quicke mystery (after 2008’s Murder in the Park
), nosy Ellie, recently married to her minister, must try to solve a missing persons case. After Ursula Belton, a distraught university student, stages a sit-in vigil at Ellie’s husband’s church, Ellie’s drawn into searching for Ursula’s best friend, Mia Prior. Mia disappeared after the drunken fatal fall of a male friend during the opening of posh Prior’s Place, a new block of upscale flats owned by Mia’s high-profile developer stepdad. As Ellie probes into Mia’s background, she comes under the radar of a gang led by Anthony and Timothy Prior, Mia’s stepbrothers. They stalk Ellie, Ursula’s mother and even Ellie’s daughter, Diana, hoping to find where battered Mia and Ursula have escaped to. More strong-coffee crime than weak-tea cozy, Heley’s unflinching take on just how low unscrupulous businessmen may go during recessionary times is an eye-opener.

August 1, 2009
An unscrupulous developer and his family threaten a middle-aged newlywed's connubial bliss.

Life seems to have come around for Ellie Quicke (Murder in the Park, 2008, etc.). After years of widowhood, she's married Thomas, her former pastor. Although she mourns her Aunt Drusilla's recent death, she's moved comfortably into Drusilla's big house and begun managing the charitable trust the rest of her inheritance has funded. When Thomas fills in for a friend at Sunday service, he discovers a young refugee in the church: Ursula Bolton, who won't leave until Ellie promises to look into the fate of her friends Lloyd, who fell from the top story of Prior's Place, a posh new development, and Mia, who disappeared soon after. Mia's family, the Priors who built Prior's Place, insist that she's a tramp who probably ran off with her latest crush. But Ursula maintains that Mia was a virgin who must have been kidnapped. As the recession takes its toll on the housing market, the Priors not only thwart Ellie's attempts to find Mia but try to bully Ellie's architect cousin Roy into investing their tottering empire. Threats eventually give way to violence. Ursula's mother is beaten; Ellie's realtor daughter Diana is punched out while showing a house; and next-door neighbor Armand gets a poke in the nose from a young Prior, who is thrashed in turn. Until Ellie can persuade a reluctant police force to act, everyone she loves is in danger.

Standard fare from an author whose puzzles take a back seat to domestic affairs.

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