cover image The Murder of Twelve: A Murder, She Wrote Mystery

The Murder of Twelve: A Murder, She Wrote Mystery

Jessica Fletcher and Jon Land. Berkley Prime Crime, $26 (304p) ISBN 978-1-9848-0433-4

It’s winter, and Cabot Cove, Maine, is expecting the blizzard of the century in Land’s solid fifth Murder, She Wrote mystery (after 2019’s A Time for Murder). Before it hits, writer-sleuth Jessica Fletcher, Sheriff Mort Metzger, and family doctor Seth Hazlitt are called to a crime scene—a dead body inside a car. It looks like suicide, but Jessica thinks it’s murder. A second call takes them to an abandoned car. Then the storm arrives, and Jessica returns to the hotel she’s staying at while her house is being renovated. The hotel is bristling with wedding guests consisting of two warring families with secrets to hide. Thanks to sporadic outside contact with the sheriff, Jessica learns the murder and abandoned car from earlier in the day are connected to the wedding party. The stakes rise as someone starts killing the 12 trapped guests one by one. This is very much a throwback to the classic TV show, and Agatha Christie fans will enjoy the And Then There Were None homage. Agent: Robert G. Diforio, D4EO Literary. (May)