BROKEN STAR
by Lizbie Brown
Anglophilic Yanks from John Dickson Carr to Martha Grimes have written some of the most British detective stories of all—like this hardcover debut from Brown: a salt-and-pepper pairing of Bath investigator Max Shepard and transplanted Virginian widow Elizabeth Blair. Max, first hired by Larry Aitken, overbearing game-show host turned landed squire, to find who's been threatening him with letters and phone calls, shifts into high gear—like calling on amiably gossipy Elizabeth—when the police pull in Larry for poisoning old Dr. Charles Wetherell, who'd been demanding an audit of a church fund Larry may have been watching too sharply. Efficient, unsurprising plotting; medium-grade banter; obvious culprit.