Lord & Lady Hetheridge Book 4

British-detective, British-humor, class-consciousness, family, family-dynamics, friction, friendship, laugh-riot, law-enforcement, London, mental-health-issues, mental-illness, murder, murder-investigation, procedural, wealthy*****

What lunacy! There is a murder in Tony's neighborhood and things start to go awry right away because DS Bhar's mother (the romance writer) has a special friend, and he seems to be the prime suspect. There are more problems with Kate's mentally ill mother and sister, and Tony is coerced into retirement! Chief Superintendent (Baron) Hetheridge, his new wife DS Kate Wakefield, and DS Paul Bhar (and even his MOTHER) are off on another bizarre homicide case and even the evil Duke Duncan Godington, (longtime psychopathic nemesis) shows up. Nowadays Kate's brother and his caregiver live with Kate and Tony, as does her bright but suffering young nephew. And even THAT sees changes! And that's just about the ongoing characters. The unusual people connected with the murder add spice to a very convoluted investigation with some fantastic plot twists and strange red herrings! This series is a whole lot of fun and laughs that make a mockery of reality. Love it!
I really appreciate the talents of voice actor Matthew Lloyd Davies to help me with easy differentiation of characters in the audio, and he always underplays the scenes! ( )

BLACK & BLUE is the 4th title in the Lord & Lady Hetheridge Mystery series by Emma Jameson.
In BLACK & BLUE, a very eccentric art dealer, Granville Hardwicke, is found dead.
No one seems to care, except for Paul Bhar’s mother, whose current boyfriend is accused of the murder.
Another light, interesting read with good plot twists, interesting and very quirky characters and the city of London as a character in its own right.
**** ( )

Interesting characters and weird circumstances make this series pleasant but light reading. ( )

Anthony Hetheridge, ninth baron of Wellegrave and Chief Superintendent of Scotland Yard, and Detective Kate Wakefield are now married. Sitting home one evening they get a call that one of their Mayfair neighbors has been involved in an incident. When they arrive they discover their neighbor has been killed and the chief suspect is the boyfriend of DI Deepal (Paul) Bhar, Kate's partner. The victim also has three ex-wives who may or may not be involved. Meanwhile on the personal front, Kate's lower class family is causing trouble for Lord and Lady Hetheridge.

I've read this four book series over the last month. It's an extremely light read that is perfect for a plane ride. The secondary characters are really interesting, especially Paul and they add a lot of humor to the mix. It's a pleasant read, but not really compelling in any way. ( )