False Name

December 4, 2020
Heley's latest installment in her Bea Abbot series is the urban equivalent of a British village cozy. It's set in London but retains the inviting charm of a small-town mystery. Bea's ward, Bernice, has brought home her boarding-school roommate, Evie Trescott, whom Bernice has unkindly dubbed "the dum-dum" because of Evie's seeming lack of intelligence. Evie's parents died tragically in a car crash, so her Aunt April and Uncle Constant have taken her in. But as part of the extremely wealthy Trescott dynasty, Evie is the only thing standing between April and Constant and the massive Trescott fortune. Bea suspects that Evie is being exploited, or, even worse, that she's targeted as part of a deadly scheme to take over her inheritance. While Bea's busy keeping Evie safe and corralling the always feisty Bernice, she's also grappling with the reappearance of her charming former husband and trying to keep her domestic employment agency running smoothly. A likable heroine, who can play the dithery old lady while cracking challenging cases, combines with suspenseful twists, quirky supporting characters, and a satisfying ending to make this a delight for fans of British mysteries.

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June 15, 2023
Entrepreneur Bea Abbot takes in a homeless man with more than a little baggage. As owner of a busy London employment agency, Bea is usually good with details. But now that her portrait painter husband, Piers, is off in Silicon Valley capturing the image of the latest media influencer, checking his studio in a nearby mews for mail somehow hasn't been at the top of her mind. When she realizes that bills about to come due are sitting in the studio's mailbox, she braves an oncoming storm to retrieve them. Somehow, under a darkening sky with the guard dog next door barking its head off, she manages to overhear a hushed conservation punctuated by a thud. She rushes outside to find a bundle of clothes thrown against her garage door and inside them, a man, barely conscious. Against her better judgment, she brings him home, where she and her teenage ward, Bernice, listen to his rambling story about a rappelling adventure gone bad. Teasing out the truth from a garbled account of a traumatized victim whose story combines the most pedestrian details (the seeming vagabond is actually a chartered accountant) with the most fantastical claims (after one of his party was injured in a fall, he was chained in a cellar for weeks before being doused with paraffin and tossed into the mews) is hard work, but methodical Bea takes the task in stride. With the help of Bernice, Piers, and her friend Hari, a tough bodyguard, she unravels a tangled web of abandonment, lost legacy, and, finally, reclamation. An unusual outing for Heley's competent, reliable heroine.

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