Judith Potts in seventy eight years old and is looking forward to a new year of naked swimming in the Thames. setting crosswords, and a bottle of sloe gin. Her plans are upended with a phone call from Sir Peter Bailey. Sir Peter Bailey is throwing a party for his wedding the next day and wants Judith to be there as an honored guest for her work solving the murders in Marlow the previous summer, but Judith is suspicious, she has no connection to Sir Peter Bailey or his upper crust world, when she probes further, she is convinced that he thinks his life is in danger.
Unable to pass up a good mystery, Judith rings Suzie Harris to accompany to the swanky party. Suzie, a local “celebrity” and unpaid radio personality, hopes that she can hawk her struggling dog walking business to Sir Peter Bailey’s rich friends. As they raid the party for food and chat with Becks Starling, the vicar’s wife and fellow murder club member. Becks is coiffed to perfection and her friends notice a brand new, expensive ring on her finger. While the friends chat, a very handsome young man, screeches up to the party in a swanky sports car.
This Lothario is none other than Sir Peter Bailey’s son, Tristram and he’s he to make a scene. With a near punch up between the estranged father and son, only broken up by Sir Peter Bailey’s fiancée Jenny Page running back into the house in tears. Tristram, unabashed makes a beeline for Becks Starling and begins chatting her up while the soon to be newly-weds make up.
However, only moments later their is a terrific crash from inside the house that is so loud that it can be heard from the grounds. Tristram, Judith, Becks, and Suzie rush to check on Sir Peter Bailey, but it is too late. After battering down the heavy wooden door to his study they find Sir Peter Bailey crushed to death under a massive wooden cabinet that had come lose from the wall.
Judith is convinced it was murder, but Suzie and Becks aren’t so sure, but after finding the door hinges recently oiled and Sir Peter Bailey will is missing, they endeavor to solve this difficult locked room mystery and stop a devious killer
I did not solve this case. I wasn’t even on the right track. The mystery is much more present in the second outing of the Marlow Murder Club and it is incredibly well-plotted and even though I had collected a lot of the clues, I couldn’t make them fit into the whole. I would say the mystery and the climatic solution is the best part of the book for me and is one of the best modern locked room mysteries I have read.
The fantastic mystery is somewhat let down by the retread of character beats in Death Comes to Marlow, especially with Becks being even more image conscious to the point of secrecy which means she is often either away from the other two members of the Marlow Murder Club Trio or is at odds with them about how to go about the investigation. I felt like those story beats were repeated unnecessarily here.
Due to Becks dealing with personal issues for most of the book, Judith and Suzie were paired up together and doing most of the investigating- and I thought it would lead to more comical hijinks, it really just meant Judith would come up with a plan and Suzie would tag along. This dynamic created friction between the characters which was addressed and resolved by Suzie and Judith- but I would have preferred less conflict between the characters and more cooperation between them to solve the mystery. However, whatever imbalances or character choices I didn’t love, are heavily over shadowed by the strength of the locked room mystery.
Death Comes to Marlow elevates the typical cozy mystery with a complex case and further expands the city of Marlow which was so vibrant in the first book. There’s also a lower stakes, but very fun mystery about the identity of a fellow crossword setter who is leaving cryptic clues to random times and places that Judith is trying to solve. I’m glad that crossword setting was a more prominent story element and wasn’t relegated to a few random crossword clues thrown in every few chapters. I hope in a future book there’s an entire plot around crossword setting. Also, Robert Thorogood, maybe throw a few of Judith’s crosswords at the end of the book for readers to solve.
Death Comes to Marlow was a great mystery and I highly recommend!
Death Comes to Marlow Reviews
Robert Thorogood Book Reviews
Golden Age of Detective Fiction 
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