A Cold Highland Wind: A Lady Emily Aston Mystery

Alexander’s meandering 17th historical cozy featuring amateur sleuths Lady Emily Aston and her husband Colin Hargreaves (after 2022’s Secrets of the Nile) interweaves events from 1905 and 1676. The 1905 story line sees Colin, Lady Emily, and their three sons visiting Cairnfarn Castle, the Scottish estate of Emily’s friend Jeremy, Duke of Bainbridge. Following a lively celebration, Angus Sinclair, Jeremy’s gamekeeper, is found beaten and stabbed to death near a lake on the property. The ferocity of the attack leads Emily to deduce that it was a crime of passion, and indeed, handsome Angus seems to have had more than his fair share of jilted admirers. Alexander intersperses Lady Emily and Colin’s investigation with chapters set in the 17th century and narrated by Tansy, a young woman who was kidnapped from her North African home, sold into slavery, and presented as a wedding gift to Rossalyn MacAllister, Lady of Cairnfarn Castle. When Rossalyn is widowed, she and Tansy are cast out of Cairnfarn by the new laird and conscripted to life in the nearby village, where they’re rumored to practice witchcraft. The Tansy chapters are often fascinating, but their connection to the main murder plot is labored and slight. This offers pleasant historical escapism but misses the mark as a mystery. (Oct.)