Saturday, June 06, 2020

Kingdom of Lies Book Review



                                                                            

Kingdom of Lies, A Murder Mystery by Lee Wood


I found this novel in the discard pile at our local library last fall and just now got around to reading it. It takes place in England, which is always a plus for me.  

An American professor of medieval history turns up at an academic conference in Leeds with her English friend, who, is working on a study of royal bloodlines. The Englishwoman quickly turns up dead in a pond on a country estate near Leeds and a local detective with anger and relationship problems is given the case.   Interference from above wants the death to be a simple suicide, but both the detective and the American professor have doubts.  The question becomes is there a serial killer on the loose and is the English Crown really under threat?  The detective is sent to London to keep an eye on the American lady and, and needless to say,  there is a relationship potential simmering beneath the surface.  The American is a modern educated woman and definitely want to go looking for the killer on her own in spite of warnings from n independent cuss who wants to search for the killer on her own in spite of warnings from the locals and the Leeds detective. There are lots of cultural contrasts explored and plenty of London travel and place details described, which again is a pleasure for me. The plot kind of goes off into la la land after a while, but the final windup is exciting. Even though the rocky love affair never gets resolved in this book, there is promise of this being the first of a series featuring the two sleuths from different lands.

Not quite as good as I had hoped but still worth a summer read. 2.5 stars.


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