Moonlight Can Be Deadly: A Discount Detective Mystery

In Stuart’s strong fourth mystery featuring Cameron Chandler (after 2021’s Shopping Can Be Deadly), Cameron, a PI employed by Penny-wise Investigations, an agency housed in a Seattle shopping mall, gets a violent and bizarre case, contrasting with her usual prosaic workload. While walking through the mall, Cameron notices Clara Ramsey crying on a bench and asks if there’s anything she can do to help. Clara is worried about her niece, Tilly Jamison, a college sophomore whose care she assumed after the death of Tilly’s mother. Tilly’s involvement with an ecofeminist group, the Green Women, has led her to join a more fringe one: the Full Moon Society. That group ostensibly studies how ancient cultures regarded the moon, but the Seattle chapter focuses on lunar human sacrifices and plans to stage a fake one during the next full moon, with Tilly as the apparently voluntary victim. Cameron and a colleague stake out the ritual, in which a participant is fatally stabbed. The sleuthing never strains credulity, and Cameron’s backstory—a widow with two children, she once aspired to an academic career—nicely complements the intriguing plot. Readers will hope to see a lot more of the endearing Cameron. Agent: Donna Pudick, Parkeast Literary. (Mar.)