A Fatal Overture is the third Ella Shane historical cozy mystery by Kathleen Marple Kalb. Released 29th March 2022 by Kensington, it's 320 pages and is available in hardcover and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.
Set in the early 20th century, Ella is an opera diva and engaged to British royalty. Whilst they're ironing out the basic conditions of their married existence as a couple (she has no intentions of giving up her career which his family sees as deeply problematic), murder and attempted murder intrude in the negotiations threatening to upset the apple cart forever.
Although the author is good at providing backstory, I would recommend readers begin with the earlier books in the series. There's a fair bit of character development which will be missed by hopping into the series here.
Quite a significant proportion of the action in this installment is spent on descriptions of food and clothing, to the detriment of the mystery. For readers who enjoy cozy drama with a side of mystery, this will suit. The mystery itself was mostly straightforward and mostly investigated off-page.
All in all, it's well written and the author has a good grasp of descriptive prose and plotting. The dialogue is a bit anachronistic in places (especially the British aunties/mother), but overall harmless and good fun.
Three and a half stars. Eminently readable.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
No comments:
Post a Comment