Our mystery-writer protagonist, Ethelred Tressider, has booked himself a Nile cruise as a ‘research trip’ for his next novel. As he and his on again/off again girlfriend, Lady Anabelle, are in an off period, Ethelred’s cantankerous editor, Elsie Thirkettle, generously offers to take the second cabin he has booked (Anabelle was very particular about needing her own space).
Despite not being the sharpest knife in the block, Ethelred soon realizes that something strange is afoot on their Nile cruise, not least that a) Anabelle has booked herself into another cabin; b) he appears to be the assumed murderer for a body; and c) the police sent to investigate the murder don’t seem very police-y at all. Together with Elsie, Ethelred is determined to clear his name and get off the boat alive, not necessarily in that order.
This is the 4th novel in L.C. Tyler’s Elsie and Ethelred series and it was a fun bit of fluff that pays lots of homage to the golden age mysteries, in particular Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Nile. Elsie is sharper than Ethelred (though not as bright as she believes she is) and Ethelred is kinder and more generous, so together the two of them make for a fun duo. I especially enjoyed the chapter buffers where Ethelred is responding to small town interview questions, to unintentional hilarity.
This moved quickly and was a nice break from some heavier reads (see: the Color Purple, review coming next, which I was reading at the same time). I’m not rushing out to grab the other novels in the series but if I chance across them I’d keep them in my TBR until needed a lighter mystery fix.