WHO WOULD RESORT TO MURDER?
Tucked away in the rolling hills of rural western Virginia is the storybook resort of Storyton Hall, catering to book lovers who want to get away from it all. To increase her number of bookings, resort manager Jane Steward has decided to host a Murder and Mayhem week so that fans of the mystery genre can gather together for some role-playing and fantasy crime solving.
But when the winner of the scavenger hunt, Felix Hampden, is found dead in the Mystery Suite, and the valuable book he won as his prize is missing, Jane realizes one of her guests is an actual murderer. Amid a resort full of fake detectives, Jane is bound and determined to find a real-life killer. There’s no room for error as Jane tries to unlock this mystery before another vacancy opens up…
For fans of: Mary Daheim
When Walter Egerton Steward decided to dismantle Storyton Hall, ship it across the Atlantic, and reassemble it in a remote part of western Virginia, he dreamed of turning the place into a resort that was an “oasis for book lovers.” Steward’s dream eventually became reality, and 85 years later, the majestic estate is still considered a “reader’s paradise.” Unfortunately, though, it’s a paradise in desperate need of repair, which is why current manager Jane Steward is so hopeful the crime-fiction-themed Murder and Mayhem Week Storyton’s hosting will help replenish the resort’s coffers.
At first, the week seems destined for success. The Hall is booked to capacity and all the guests are enthusiastic about the activities Jane’s planned. But when one of the guests is found dead in his room, Jane’s forced to wonder if someone at Storyton’s taken the murder and mayhem theme a bit too far. Can she solve the crime in time to salvage the remainder of the festivities, or will the event designed to save Storyton Hall instead prove its undoing?
Ellery Adams swings for the fences with Murder in the Mystery Suite, the first of her new Book Retreat Mysteries. I actually like the premise of this series quite a lot; I’m a sucker for secret histories, ancient orders, and manor house mysteries, and Adams’ latest tries to combine all three. Unfortunately, though, while Adams’ goals may be laudable, her efforts are unsuccessful, and the result is a somewhat unsatisfying read.
Murder in the Mystery Suite would be a much better book if every single aspect weren’t completely overwritten. The prose is florid. The action, drama, and dialogue are overwrought. The scenes between Jane and her potential love interest are so swoony and syrupy they could have been lifted from a teen romance novel. The cast is so large that it’s impossible to keep track of who’s who (it doesn’t help that nearly everybody’s name starts with an S), and very few of the characters are developed past the cardboard cutout stage. The plot hatched by Adams’ villain is convoluted, the final showdown is so silly it borders on farce, and there are way too many pages between said final showdown and the actual end of the book. Add to all that some dreadfully uneven pacing, and you have a book that probably should have gone through another round of edits.
That said, this series has potential. Adams is usually a pretty captivating storyteller (I’m a big fan of her Charmed Pie Shoppe Mysteries), so I think a lot of the problems I had with Murder in the Mystery Suite stem from the fact that she tried to accomplish too much in a book that’s only 277 pages long. Her series premise is fairly complex, and as a consequence, there’s an awful lot of mythmaking and worldbuilding going on for a tale that also includes a fledgling romance and a murder mystery. Hopefully, though, now that the stage is set and the heavy lifting is done, Adams will use her second Book Retreat Mystery to realize that potential and dazzle her audience once more.
Reviewed by Kat
