Sheila Malory is part of the committee planning July’s Taviscombe Festival, an annual event that used to be centered on village life but that has come under the sway of incomer Adrian Pulgrave, a rather pretentious minor poet who unfortunately for Sheila is actually very competent in his secondary life as a biographer. Adrian has recently been given the task of organizing and publishing the letters of Laurence Meredith, an author who knew everybody in the 1920s and who gossipped about his knowledge in his letters; Sheila knows that he will do a good job regardless of her dislike, but when he is murdered at the Festival, that job becomes more urgent than ever…. I’m enjoying the Mrs. Malory series, of which this is the fourth book; Sheila is much like Miss Marple but in a more contemporary (well, early 1990s) setting. She has a wide knowledge of local residents, happens to have quite well-honed sleuthing skills as a specialist in Victorian literature herself, and is quite adept at learning disparate bits of information and arranging them into a convincing whole. These are slight books, with little demanded of the reader other than to savour the tales; I don’t think it’s necessary to read them in order, and they are quite an enjoyable way to while away an afternoon; mildly recommended. ( )