A Howl of Wolves

March 12, 2018
In Flanders’s entertaining fourth mystery featuring London book editor Samantha Clair (after 2017’s A Cast of Vultures), Sam accepts the invitation of her upstairs neighbors, actors Kay and Anthony, to attend the opening night of a new production of a blood-soaked 16th-century play in which Kay’s character meets a grisly end. Sam is not enthusiastic, but wants to support her friend—especially since Kay’s adorable six-year-old son, Bim, has a small role in the play. But when the curtains part on the second act, the body of the director, Campbell Davison, is revealed hanging from the rafters. Days later, the costume designer is killed. Only when a woman claiming to be Sam kidnaps Bim does Sam muster all her forces—including her live-in love, homicide detective Jake Field—to find the killer. Sam’s delightfully acerbic British wit more than compensates for a plot that falls apart at the end. Flanders gives readers a fascinating backstage look at the theater and insight into the amusing machinations of the English publishing world. Agent: George Lucas, Inkwell Management.

April 15, 2018
Theater people may be superstitious, but even they don't expect to find the director hanging from the rafters on opening night--in the middle of the play.London book editor Samantha "Sam" Clair is trying to be a supportive friend when she takes her boyfriend, Scotland Yard detective Jake Field, to see a play called The Spanish Tragedy, even though Jake isn't thrilled about an evening's entertainment so full of murder. Her upstairs neighbor Kay is "only playing the lead actress's maid, but, as she said cheerfully, she got to die in a pool of blood onstage." Kay's 6-year-old son, Bim, also has a small part, and Sam certainly doesn't want to miss that. The climax of the play is supposed to be a body hanging from the rafters, so at first the audience doesn't realize the body is real--it's Campbell Davison, the director, and not just a dummy made up to look like him. Jake quickly gets involved in the police investigation, which means, of course, that Sam is pulled between trying to get information out of him and downplaying her own interest so he won't clam up. Soon she and her mother, Helena, an indefatigable solicitor, are searching through archives and waylaying lawyers to find out more about various persons of interest while Sam manages to hold down her job and even convince her firm's recalcitrant sales director to feature one of her authors--that most overlooked of creatures, a middle-aged woman--at their upcoming sales conference. In previous installments, Flanders (A Cast of Vultures, 2017, etc.) used Sam's job as a point of entry to the fashion industry and the art scene, and this peek behind the scenes of the theater world is equally entertaining. There are several people with plausible motives--the costume designer who seems to be using stolen designs, the investor who keeps turning up in unexpected places--but, as usual, the main attraction is Sam's wry, skeptical voice, which manages to inject humor into something as prosaic as trying to interpret a nine-word text from Helena: "Meeting Nigel for breakfast. 7, at St. Paul's café." What's funny about that? Read it and see.Anyone interested in mysteries and books and humor--and who isn't?--will enjoy Flanders' latest delightful novel.

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December 1, 2017

How kind of Sam Clair to attend the West End play in which her upstairs neighbors have small parts, bringing along boyfriend Jake Field, a Scotland Yard detective. And how shocking that when the second act opens, the director is found dangling from the rafters. Next in the series begun with A Murder of Magpies, a LibraryReads Top Ten pick.

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