Murder by Suggestion

August 6, 2018
Like many entries in this long-running series, Heley’s busy 19th Ellie Quicke mystery (after 2017’s Murder for Nothing) begins with the ringing of the doorbell of Ellie’s large, comfortable London home. In sweeps Diana, her remarkably rude daughter, dragging her suitcases and wailing that her much older husband, Evan, has thrown her out. Ellie discovers that Diana and her friends have been playing a murder game, with each coming up with a way to kill a spouse. Then Bunny Brewster, one of the husbands, dies in exactly the way that Diana suggested. Soon, Ellie’s ever so tastefully furnished sitting room is filled with Diana’s friends lamenting at top volume. All of their husbands have thrown them out. Ellie offers beds to the women, digs into her bottomless freezer to provide meals, and puts the water on to boil for tea. Another husband dies, and a house or two is set on fire. Will Ellie solve these bizarre incidents without ever leaving home? You bet she will. Once again Heley successfully melds a cozy sensibility with dark doings. Agent: Juliet Burton, Juliet Burton Literary (U.K.).

August 15, 2018
It's the gals against the guys as Ellie Quicke (Murder for Nothing, 2017, etc.) tries to referee a slugfest between five businessmen and their wives.Ellie's first whiff of trouble comes when her daughter, Diana, shows up on her doorstep in a panic. Diana's husband, Evan, has thrown her out without a single one of their joint credit cards, all because she and four girlfriends were joking online about how they might do away with their neglectful spouses, who spend every weekend schmoozing at the golf club, leaving them at the bar to drink and plot mayhem. Evan's justification for this drastic step is that Bunny Brewster, one of the golf club fivesome, died when his pills got mixed up, precisely the method one of the wives suggested. Evan claims to fear that he'll become the next victim. But Ellie suspects there's more to the plot than first meets the eye when the remaining four wives--Barbie, Russet, Trish, and Kat--follow Diana's lead and seek asylum in Ellie's capacious house after their husbands follow suit and chuck them out. Could all the men be worried they'll be their wives' next targets? Or have they found a convenient way to rid themselves of their aging spouses and move on to greener pastures? As Ellie helps the women fight back, her opponents up the ante, until Ellie finds her own marriage in deadly peril.Heley's latest entry delivers both more and less than it promises. The women show grit and ingenuity, while the men are all formula bluster and bad behavior, and the solution comes straight out of left field.

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September 1, 2018
It's another madcap murder mystery for amateur sleuth Ellie Quicke. When her daughter, Diana, shows up on Ellie's doorstep, saying she's been thrown out by her husband, Ellie is appalled. Her head is still spinning when four women, friends of Diana's, appear, informing Ellie that Diana said they could stay at Ellie's since they, too, have been thrown out by their husbands. The women are clearly distraught, so Ellie feels she can't refuse. As she tries to come to grips with what's happened?even consulting her policewoman friend Lesley?the tale turns sinister, with a death and two cases of arson that nearly result in fatalities. It soon becomes clear that there's more at stake than the women's marriages. The question is whether Ellie can figure out whodunit before another fatality occurs. Like a British cozy on speed, Heley's latest is frenetic, action-packed, and clever?all that, and the redoubtable supersleuth Ellie Quicke cavorting in high style.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)