On a remote Scottish island, American antique dealer Kate Hamilton sleuths a killing that eerily replicates a murder still unsolved after 200 years.
Autumn has come and gone on Scotland's Isle of Rothsay, and the locals gather for the Tartan Ball, the annual end-of-tourist-season gala. Among the invited guests is American antique dealer Kate Hamilton. Returning to the island where her husband died is brutal, but Kate is determined to repair her relationship with her sister-in-law, Elenor Spurgeon, the proprietor of Rothsay's deluxe country house hotel.
Kate has hardly unpacked when a body turns up, murdered in an eerie recreation of an infamous unsolved murder two hundred years before. And the only clue to the killer's identity lies in a curiously embellished antique casket. When Bo Duff, the gentle handyman who had tried to save Kate’s husband's life, is taken into custody, she teams up with vacationing Detective Inspector Tom Mallory to clear Bo’s name. To accomplish that, they’ll have to unmask a killer who seems bizarrely fixated on the past…because two hundred years is an awfully long time to hold a grudge in A Dream of Death, the tantalizing series debut by Connie Berry.
Phew! What a superb opening book to what I hope will be a lengthy series, I love the premise that two people who are non-native can team together to help solve a crime (or few!)
Kate Hamilton does not have the best re-introduction to the Isle, her luggage has gone missing (and she is supposed to be gussied up for a ball that night!), she nearly ran into a car, oh and she is dreading meeting her sister in law (Elanor) again (who has ignored her pretty much all the time, but now wants something). One bright spot is meeting Bo again, her late husband's friend and the man who tried to save him when he had a heart attack and drowned. When she arrives at the hotel, Elanor gives no reason for her summons, only to say she will find out after the ball (and Kate is lucky that the fantastic cook for the hotel has a daughter who wears pretty much the same size and so she isn't turning up in travel worn clothes!)
After the ball she discovers that someone has searched her cottage and then she finds out that someone has killed Elanor, the problem is that Bo seems to be the one the local police are fixated on, Kate has some back up in the form of the man she almost ran into, a man called Tom who is a visiting English police officer, the problem is everyone seems to be hiding something and the only things she are sure about is that she didn't kill Elanor and neither did Bo, but that leaves the field well and truly open!
An Interview With A Character
- What is your full name?
Katherine Ann Hamilton, née Larsen. My parents were Scandinavian, but I jumped ship and married a Scot, born on the Isle of Glenroth in the Scottish Hebrides.
- What is your profession?
Like my parents before me, I'm an antiques dealer and appraiser, specializing in fine objects from the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries.
- What is your current favorite book or movie?
I adore the classics, so I'd have to say my favorite book is either Middlemarch by George Eliot (1874) with its surprisingly contemporary themes or Clarissa (1748), the five-volume behemoth by Samuel Richardson that helped set the course of British novel-writing. Oh dear—do I sound like a history geek? No comment.
- What is your go-to comfort book or movie?
No question here: Pride and Prejudice, the mini-series with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. This gorgeous production (unlike the unfortunate movie starring a skeletal Keira Knightly) reflects not only the English Regency but also the tone of Austen's novel. I watch the series at least once a year, especially when I'm lonely. My Scottish Fold kitty, Fiona, and I cuddle up on the sofa with a bowl of popcorn and indulge our time-travel fantasies.
- If someone was to play you in a movie, who would it be?
I've been told I look like Charlize Theron in her dark-hair stage, but I can't see the resemblance myself. I'm certainly not glamorous and could care less about things like clothes and make-up—especially since my husband died three years ago. My best friend, Charlotte, an ex-department store window dresser, considers me her private what-not-to-wear project.
- What is your ideal evening?
I don't have one anymore—not since Bill died. We used to take walks in the evening or, in the summer, sit on the porch swing and discuss our day. Nowadays the cat-and-popcorn thing passes the time. What I need is a little adventure, and I may get more than I'd bargained for. In two days I fly to the Scottish Highlands, where my husband's sister, Elenor, owns a country house hotel. Elenor has resented me from our first meeting twenty-five years ago. Now she claims she's in trouble and needs my help.
Exactly why remains to be seen. Wish me luck.
TOUR PARTICIPANTS
April 15 – The Editing Pen – GUEST POST
April 15 – Reading Is My SuperPower – REVIEW
April 16 – The Pulp and Mystery Shelf – AUTHOR INTERVIEW
April 16 – I’m All About Books – GUEST POST
April 17 – A Holland Reads – SPOTLIGHT*
April 17 – Bibliophile Reviews – REVIEW
April 18 – The Power of Words – REVIEW
April 18 – Socrates Book Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
April 19 – The Avid Reader – REVIEW
April 19 – Book Club Librarian – REVIEW
April 20 – Ruff Drafts – AUTHOR INTERVIEW
April 20 – Babs Book Bistro – SPOTLIGHT
April 21 – Celticlady’s Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
April 22 – Baroness’ Book Trove – REVIEW
April 22 – StoreyBook Reviews – GUEST POST
April 23 – My Reading Journeys – REVIEW
April 23 – Cozy Up With Kathy – REVIEW, AUTHOR INTERVIEW
April 24 – A Blue Million Books – AUTHOR INTERVIEW
April 24 – Literary Gold – SPOTLIGHT
April 25 – Ascroft, eh? – AUTHOR INTERVIEW
April 26 – A Wytch’s Book Review Blog – REVIEW, CHARACTER INTERVIEW
April 26 – My Devotional Thoughts – SPOTLIGHT
Crafts and Life 
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