Best for:
Fans of cozy mysteries.
In a nutshell:
Laurence and Eva are getting married in Italy. The bride is running late to the ceremony and then we hear a scream. So … what’s happened?
Worth quoting:
N/A (though the writing is good, just nothing stood out to me).
Why I chose it:
Working my way through Hindle’s back catalogue
Review:
Third book of Hindle’s that I’ve read and probably my favorite so far. This book is 360 pages long and the murder in question isn’t revealed until page 150ish. That’s WILD set-up but it works so well.
While we get many different perspective chapters, I’d say the main character of the book is Robyn. Robyn is meeting her boyfriend’s Toby’s family for the first time at this wedding, and it’s a rough go. Toby’s family is super wealthy, and Toby is interested in opening and running a bar, not working for the family business. But his brother (the groom) and his mother are absolutely determined to get Toby in, and they do not like Robyn, as she is ‘just’ a bartender, and they think she’s steering Toby astray (she’s not).
Eva is a rich influencer and a brat, Laurence is a stuck up private school boy (as are most of his friends). But we also have Stephen – a friend who went to school with Laurence but was a scholarship kid, and his wife Abigail.
The wedding is taking place in the height of summer in Italy, and things heat up literally and metaphorically. A magazine is covering the event, so there’s a photographer and Eva’s agent in tow.
The writing in this is great, and I get such a sense of who each of these people are. I made the mistake of having about 150 pages left when I got in bed last night, and had to stay up late to finish it because I couldn’t put it down.