Read in 2026 - 28, 29

I am finally catching up on my book reviews and have decided to make this one a combination of two reviews which I will try to keep short-ish. There is one more waiting to be written, but it will have its own post.

#28: The landscape of Death

M.S. Morris

This one captured my interest because it is set in and around Scarborough, where I have spent several holidays with my late husband. I've not been back since but intend to walk down those particular memory lanes some time.

DCI Tom Raven grew up in Scarborough but has not set foot in town for decades, leaving his past and some traumatic memories behind. Now he has returned after his father's death to sort out things and is promptly drawn into a murder investigation that involves some of the people from back then.

As this is the first of a series (and therefore was offered as a freebie at Amazon's Kindle store), you can imagine that the investigation was successful and in the end Tom decides not to return to his job and life in London but stay in Scarborough.

I liked the book well enough to consider buying the next one.

M.S. Morris is, by the way, not one person but the pen name used by a duo of authors, Margarita and Steve Morris. You can learn more about them here on their own website.

#29: Two Birds With One Stone

Sigrid Vansandt

We're once again in Yorkshire for a murder investigation, but that's where the similarities with my previous read end.

This time, the place is a village and the investigators are amateur sleuths: Two expat American ladies of middle age meet quite by chance literally over the dead body of one of the most disliked characters in the village. They quickly decide to work together on this, since the local police seems to be both unable and somewhat unwilling to interview the right people and ask the right questions.

Needless to say, the two ladies succeed and eventually not only manage to rope in the local police force but also to secure themselves great jobs, become friends and even take the first tentative steps towards their respective romantic interests.

This was a much lighter read than the book set in Scarborough, and while I found it entertaining, I am not inclined to follow the series (in spite of its Yorkshire setting).

The author does not appear to have her own website anymore (the link I found on Goodreads leads to an error page), but Goodreads says she was born in the US and started to write in second grade. Being from the US herself, she was obviously able to incorporate personal experience in the expat characters.