Fatality with Forster

Hyde’s evocative fifth Crime with Classics mystery (after 2019’s Death with Dostoevsky) takes former literature professor Emily Cavanaugh and her new husband, Sheriff Luke Richardson, of Stony Beach, Ore., to a B&B on a grand English estate for a monthlong honeymoon. Their hosts, Sir James Fitzhugh and his American wife, Allison, have instituted several moneymaking schemes to contribute to the estate’s upkeep, of which the B&B is one. The hosts are keeping James’s extremely traditional grandmother, Lady Margaret, who was horrified that her darling grandson married an American, in the dark about such changes, as they know she would never approve. James and Allison are striving to live authentic lives, and Lady Margaret is desperate to maintain the family’s position and keep up appearances. When a shocking murder occurs on the estate, Lady Margaret insists Allison is to blame, and Emily and Luke are thrust into the whodunit equivalent of an E.M. Forster novel. Literary references galore and plenty of chilling English manor house atmosphere more than make up for what amounts to not much of a mystery. Hyde knows how to hook the reader. Agent: Kimberley Cameron, Kimberley Cameron Assoc. (July)