The world's greatest detective and her just okay assistant

Tully, a pseudonym for A Taste of Power author Elisabeth Elo, moves from thrillers to cozy territory with this amusing fair-play mystery. Olivia Blunt, a 25-year-old former fact-checker for an online news bureau, has come to the Gramercy Park apartment of 60-year-old Aubrey Merritt, the most famous PI in America, with hopes of snagging a position as her assistant. Impressed by Olivia's sleuthing bona fides, the imperious Aubrey agrees to take her on. The pair's first client is Haley Summersworth, whose mother, Victoria, died from an early-morning fall from her balcony after celebrating her 65th birthday at a resort she owned on Vermont's Lake Champlain. The Burlington police assume Victoria died by suicide, but Haley doesn't buy it. Soon, a skeptical Aubrey and determined Olivia are off to Vermont, where suspects abound, including resort employees and Victoria's society friends. Tully juggles a near-overload of characters and red herrings, but she pulls it off, largely thanks to Olivia's spirited first-person narration and the book's focus on her fraught mentor/mentee relationship with Aubrey. Readers will be eager for a sequel. Agent: Esmond Harnsworth, Aevitas Creative Management. (July)

The 20-something personal assistant to a New York City famous private detective earns her sleuthing wings working an apparent suicide case that turns murkier and more entangled than she expects. Getting hired to work with Aubrey Merritt is a dream come true for fact-checker Olivia Blunt until she discovers that all Aubrey seems to want is a secretary rather than a full-fledged partner. Then Aubrey accepts a case from Haley Summersworth, who believes her mother Victoria's apparent suicide was actually a murder. She invites Olivia to drive her to the scene of the crime on Vermont's Lake Champlain and assist with investigations. Ambitious and eager to prove her worth, Olivia tries to pass her formidable boss' many tests of observation and not get fired like the assistants that preceded her, all while holding on to a relationship back in New York. It soon becomes clear that too much about Victoria's death does not make sense. Vibrant and charming, Victoria had a personal life--which included a recovering addict son accused of mismanaging the family business, marriage to an unfaithful man who died under mysterious circumstances, and an ex-con lover--that points to a dark web of intrigue. After one of Victoria's stepchildren turns up dead and Olivia stumbles into a life-threatening situation, a case that had seemed so simple turns into her worst nightmare. Using conventional plotting tropes that gradually build to a grand reveal rather than surprise revelations through rapid and/or unexpected twists, this novel succeeds through memorable characters at odds with each other (and sometimes themselves) across generational divides. A solidly entertaining read, especially for lovers of traditional mysteries. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.