Murders in the Marquee is the first book in a historical cozy(ish!) series by Dana Mentink. Released 1st Sept 2026 by HarperCollins on their Harlequin Trade imprint, it's 336 pages and is available in paperback, audio, and ebook format. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout.
This is an engaging and readable historical mystery set in 1905 in one of San Francisco's luxury hotels. Reformed jewel thief Saul winds up getting dragged into sleuthing by a resident of the hotel along with the young elevator operator. Although Saul sees "something" which he strongly fears is a murder on his first day at the hotel, he doesn't want to get involved and is reassured when no alarms are raised by staff or patrons and thinks he must have misinterpreted what he heard and saw.
Although Saul is well developed, the characterization, especially the secondary characters are less well defined and with much less realistic motivations. The crimes remain hidden for roughly 70% of the book. Although billed as a cozy, there is some moderately graphic content (disposal of a corpse) along with some questionable motives on the part of one of the sleuths.
The unabridged audiobook has a run time of 10 hours 23 minutes and is capably read by Kimberly M. Wetherell. She has a well modulated alto voice and does a good job delineating the characters of a range of ages, both male and female. Sound and production quality were high throughout the read.
Four stars. It would be a good choice for fans of historical mystery, or a buddy or challenge read. Clean language throughout.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
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