Murder at the White Palace

The seventh in the series featuring sleuths Iris Sparks and Gwen Bainbridge, co-owners of the Right Sort Marriage Bureau, finds them planning a New Year's Eve party for their clientele. But having had a late start, they must ask Iris's gangster boyfriend, Archie Spelling, to use his newly acquired club, the White Palace, as a venue. The club is perfect except for the long-dead body they find bricked into a wall. The book's focus on a convoluted 25-year-old murder scheme gets relevance from its ties to Archie and, by extension, Iris, who has decisions to make about the couple's future. Gwen, too, has romantic entanglements to unravel. The 1945 London setting gets short shrift and the plot is slowed by a lot of snooker. But, as always, it's the fascinating yin and yang of the amateur sleuths that keep pages turning. Their romantic affairs, left with question marks, will have fans eagerly awaiting the next book.

Set in 1946 London, Montclair's sixth whodunit featuring matchmakers Iris Sparks and Gwen Bainbridge (after The Lady from Burma) is another winning blend of humor and mystery. After Gwen's husband died in WWII, her wealthy family assigned her a court-appointed guardian, but she's just received a judicial order freeing her from the arrangement. To celebrate, she proposes that she and Iris throw a New Year's Eve party for their Right Sort Marriage Bureau clients. With a shortage of available spaces in London, the pair turns to Archie Spelling, Iris's property baron boyfriend, for help. He sends them to the White Palace, a run-down dance hall, and in the process of making the venue party ready, they discover a corpse. The police--including lead investigator Mike Kinsey, Iris's ex-fiancé--suspect Archie of the killing, forcing Iris and Gwen to help clear his name. As they investigate, pulling together a list of possible suspects who are too close to their own social circles for comfort, Gwen tiptoes back into the dating world for the first time since her husband's death. The banter between Iris and Gwen remains brisk and hilarious, and Montclair does a particularly good job throwing readers off the culprit's scent. Series fans will be over the moon. (July)

As Britain slowly recovers from the World War II years of horror and deprivation, a spunky pair of women find new reasons to mourn and quest. The Right Sort Marriage Bureau is the brainchild of former spy Iris Sparks and war widow Gwendolyn Bainbridge, who's recently been declared sane by the courts after her husband's aristocratic family tried to wrest control of her life and her son from her. Inspired by their success in matching clients looking for love, Gwen comes up with the idea of a New Year's Eve dance that will bring customers together in a romantic setting. But finding a venue proves difficult until Iris' current swain, Archie Spelling--whose many business enterprises are mostly on the wrong side of the law--suggests a nightclub he's renovating. When they visit the club, they see that a brick wall is being removed from the basement. Its collapse nearly flattens Gwen and reveals a mummified man wearing an unusual ring that later vanishes. Unfortunately, the police officer sent to the scene is Iris' former fiance, DS Mike Kinsey, who has no love for Archie and has been involved in several other murder cases involving Iris and Gwen. Gwen tries out dating Rodman Hilliard, a brash young man she beat at snooker, and Iris invites Archie to meet her prickly mother, a Member of Parliament. When Archie is shot and his recovery looks uncertain, Iris and Gwen resolve to find out who did it. A page-turning mystery full of local color and angst-filled romances. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.