Jude and Carol delve into the discovery of a skeleton in the garden of the estate of a WWI-era author. Other crimes soon follow. Much scholarly and political infighting is revealed. Brett is a master of the English cozy. ( )

Murder in the Museum has a plot device I see frequently: a seventy-year-old corpse is discovered, and a new murder occurs as the plot thickens.

Carole is a newly appointed trustee at Bracketts, the home of a long-dead poet which is being converted to a museum; she has the dubious honor of being present when the old corpse is found in the kitchen garden.

Early on, one can predict who else will die (see if you get it right), but the murder takes a very long time to actually happen. Meanwhile, Jude’s whiskey-drinking, chain-smoking friend shows up and even jealous Carole has to admit that the friend’s academic skills come in handy in researching what really happened at Bracketts. It’s not too often that characters actually show some development and growth in a mystery series, by the way, but Carole does seem to be growing; she demonstrates awareness of her tendency to be jealous of Jude’s friends, but recognizes that she is unable to stop herself.

While Carole works with and against other trustees and staff to learn more about the earlier death, Jude uses her own resources at the local prison to speak directly to a convicted murderer in hope of gaining insight. Ted Crisp, pub owner and Carole’s unlikely former fling, makes a brief appearance, but otherwise all characters are both new and irritating, for the most part.

Did I guess the present-day murderer? Yes, in a kind of “wouldn’t it be funny if?” kind of way. The plot weaves a decades-old death and a brand new murder together, which is no small feat. I did not listen to the audio version.

You can read this book without reading the others in the series first, although you’ll lose a bit of context around Carole and her quirks.

( )

Someone gave this book-on-CD to me thinking I would like the setting among philanthropists and academics on the board of a the estate of a fictitous and very minor contemporary of [[Tolkien]], [[Chesterton]], and [[Lewis]]. The business of academia and research was correct, by and large: the figure who publishes one small discovery over and over again, the grand project that is never finished (and probably never will be), and the rivalries, jealousies and power struggles. However the characters of the academics fall into unfortunate stereotypes (the vain and brilliant professor who beds pretty research assistants, the brash and pushy female professor who is, all in all, an weak and unpleasant person). This is a bit like reading mysteries where the main character is a stereotype of a judge or a cop: one longs for a more realistic book about a closely drawn individual with a job.

The mystery part of the book, centered on the discovery of a skeleton in the estate garden, is good. There are a wealth of suspects with sound motives, a good red herring, and a surprising denouement. (The chapters where a female protagonist discovers, then gets locked into, a secret room was borrowed from [[Mary Robert Rinehart]], who did it first (and better) in [The Circular Staircase].) I give the author point for chosing the board of a very minor charity as the setting for a mystery and the book was good summer reading. I recommend it if you are in the mood for an amiable mystery without a lot of dark grit or deep thoughts on the evils of the human heart.

The reader of my book-on-CD (not the author) did a fine job giving the characters individual, consistent voices (with the exception of a character from New York who keeps sliding into a Chicago accent). I did have to pay attention to remember which of the two female protagonists was speaking, but I think that was a matter of characterization, not voice acting (i.e. the neat one is never seen straightening things, or some other consistent mental or physical cue to remind the reader "ah, this is the neat one". There were plenty of settings (a pub, a private Victorian home preserved as a museum, the habits of less exacting fellow characters) which might have given her an opportunity to exercise this trait.))

Finally, as this book suggests, it is true that an opening line of, "Ah, aren't you the Dr. So-and-so who wrote the brilliant article on (obscure topic) in (long German title)" will work to break the ice with most professors -- if it is a) true b) your German is correct c) you can answer followup questions. Most academics will listen politely to what you have to say after this, although many will suspect they are being buttered up (unless they are truly vain: some are.)

-Kushana ( )

Didn't finish listening to this book. I quit at the half point because it was slow, stuffy and just boring. ( )

I was disappointed with this book, the first one I read death on the downs was very good, but this one was very hard to stay with ( )