False Pride

February 29, 2016
Bea Abbot faces a host of problems in Heley’s muddled 10th mystery featuring the domestic agency proprietress (after 2015’s False Impression). First, the brick wall that separates her suburban London property from that of her multibillionaire fiancé, Leon Holland, suddenly collapses, knocking over a sycamore tree and leaving her garden devastated. Soon afterward, the police find human remains in Leon’s garden. At a party at another neighbor’s house, someone drugs Bea’s drink. In a panic, Bea goes in search of Leon, only to look out a window and see that her house is on fire. She later worries that if she has to leave her damaged home, she’ll have no agency—and no income. Both resolute and needy, Bea must rely on her detection skills and her friends’ help to determine who’s got it in for her and why. Though everything fits together in the end, too many characters with multiple agendas make for an incoherent puzzle.

April 1, 2016

The collapse of a garden wall dividing Bea's property from her friend Leon's newly acquired home unearths a human skeleton. The proprietor of the Abbot Agency begins to wonder about the property's previous owners. Bea must protect both her business and her friendship with Leon. Readers will not be disappointed in the tenth book of the series (False Impression); excellent characterizations and plotting abound.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2016
Bea Abbott may look like a dithery old lady, but that's far off the mark. Bea runs a successful domestic agency in London, solves the occasional mystery, and has a strong religious faith to support her when times get tough. In her latest adventure, Bea is shocked when the solid brick wall separating her property from her neighbors' falls down, with massive damage to her backyard. When the owner of the fallen wall invites Bea and her longtime beau, Leon, to a party shortly afterward, she thinks it must be to make up for the damage their wall did. Instead, she and Leon are drugged and photographed in compromising, albeit falsely arranged, circumstances, and Bea's house is set on fire. It takes all of Bea's courage to face the fact that her neighbors have attacked her, and as she digs into possible motives, she uncovers a desperate and dangerous family willing to take any risk to preserve their profligate lifestyle. An intriguing plot, a tough-minded heroine, and a satisfying ending make this an entertaining read.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)