It was a dark and stormy night when friends and community members gathered at the Wentworth Estate for a murder mystery dinner fundraiser. Unfortunately, the body guests encountered was not one of an actor playing a role. With a storm raging and some roads impassable–even for police and first responders–bookshop staffer and criminology graduate Annie Murray is on her own at the crime scene. She has the support of her best friend, Pri, Pri’s girlfriend and estate owner, Penny, and the caterer-slash-probable-future-boyfriend Liam, but the other guests are on edge, eager to leave, and hesitant to follow Annie’s lead.

I felt disappointed when the plot took the narrative off the Wentworth Estate to carry on over subsequent days. I had hoped the entire book would be set and solved in one evening. The pace and atmosphere had been wonderful up until that point. Then, readers were pulled back into poetic and somewhat long-winded descriptions of the scenery in and around the fictional Redwood Grove. As much as I wanted to unmask the murderer and solve the mystery, my once-rapt attention wandered, and I skimmed rather than read the remaining chapters.

I noticed a couple of minor continuity issues in the text, though perhaps they were later fixed after the ARC was released to readers. Overall, I always enjoy Ellie Alexander‘s small-town cozy mysteries, and I’ll be awaiting the next Secret Bookcase story.