Murder at a Scottish Wedding

Hall’s intriguing fourth Scottish Shire mystery (after 2022’s Murder at a Scottish Social) opens at Old Nairn Kirk, where Lydia Barron, the best friend of Paislee Shaw, the owner of a sweater and yarn shop in Nairn, Scotland, is about to marry her old-money love, Corbin Smythe. In the church’s dressing room, Lydia panics when she can’t find the box containing the heirloom Luckenbooth brooch, a traditional Scottish love token that Corbin has given her. Matron of honor Paislee helps her search to no avail. Shortly before the ceremony, Felice, a Smythe cousin, rushes out of the church and takes a fatal fall down the stairs to the street. Inside Felice’s hand is the missing brooch. Intuitive Paislee, an experienced amateur sleuth, thinks Felice’s death was no accident and neither is Corbin’s subsequent disappearance. Hall expertly juggles multiple story lines, of which the one involving the fraught Shaw family saga will most engage readers. That Detective Inspector Zeffer may have pertinent new details on Paislee’s long-lost uncle, Craigh Shaw, lends counterpoint to the murder inquiry. Fans of all things Scottish will have fun. Agent: Evan Marshall, Evan Marshall Agency. (Feb.)