From Library Journal
Series (Trouble in the Town Hall, LJ 10/1/96) sleuth Dorothy Martin, an American who retired to England, confronts murder once again. While touring a Scottish island, she investigates the "accidental" death of a young American in Fingal's Cave. A delightful continuation.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

New York Times Book Review
"Dorothy is a dear."

From Kirkus Reviews
Sixtyish Dorothy Martin, a widowed American now living in the English village of Sheresbury (Trouble in the Town Hall, 1996, etc.), happily accepts an invitation from friends Tom and Lynn Anderson to spend two weeks on the tiny island of Iona in Scotland. When Tom's illness delays the couple's departure, though, Dorothy makes the journey alone. Discovering that she's left the key to their cottage at home, Dorothy checks into a small hotel run by Hester and Andrew Campbell. A group from Illinois is also staying there--the winners of a contest to find the most community- dedicated members of various Chicago churches, with Rabbi Jake Goldstein subbing for a Quaker winner stricken with appendicitis. Iona is a stop on their tour, and no one seems happy about it--or with one another: Sister Teresa, a feminist nun in mufti; elegant Unitarian Grace Desmond; Hattie Mae Brown, a Baptist choir leader; Lutheran organist Chris Olafson; unctuous, unpopular youth leader Bob Williams; and short-fused garden-designer Janet Douglas, a Presbyterian. A sight-seeing excursion to Fingal's Cave makes a slow-moving Dorothy, arriving after others have left, the only witness when Bob Williams falls to his death from a rocky height. She becomes obsessed with the idea that the fall was murder, not accident, and spends the rest of her stay trying to prove it. Some interesting characters, a graphic description of a humongous storm, and a picture of the island's craggy isolation are well done. But Dorothy's relentless and self-absorbed maunderings, along with a nearly nonexistent plot, bring the third in this series closer to chatty travel guide than mystery. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Dorothy Martin has a weakness for fine food, and when her friends Tom and Lynn inviter her to spend some time with them at a cottage on the island of Iona in the Hebrides, promising fresh crab and exquisite salmon, and since her, well, dear friend Chief Constable Alan Nesbitt is away in Brussells, she gives in and agrees to join them. The first thing that goes wrong are Tom's chest pains, keeping the Andersons in London. The second thing that troubles Dorothy are the folks traveling with her - an ecumenical group from Chicago that is anything but ecumenical. The third problem is the weather forecast. A storm is bearing down on the island, and the threat inherent in that news is enough to make even the most stouthearted think twice. To make Dorothy's arrival even more of a horror is the fact that in her haste to leave home, she left the key to the cottage behind. The food had better be all that it was said to be; she has to spend the first night of her holiday with the bickering religious from America. Her first full day is a holy terror. The storm is building, but an opportunity to go to fabled Fingal's Cave cannot be passed up, even with the ever more cantankerous Americans along for the ride. What she wants even less is the next event: One of the group falls from the rocks in the cave and disappears beneath the waves. It is clearly an accident, an unfortunate happenstance, and everyone is willing to accept it as such. Except for Dorothy. As the island of Iona is isolated by the storm, Dorothy begins asking questions no one wants answered, and finding answers that reveal things that she might not have wanted to know.

FROM THE CRITICS

New York Times Book Review

Dorothy is a dear.

VOYA - Joanna Morrison

Retired American expatriate Dorothy Martin has settled into life in the British town of Sherebury. Tempted by friends into sharing a holiday cottage on the island of Iona in the Scottish Hebrides, she arrives to discover her friends cannot immediately join her. When she finds herself alone, Dorothy decides to stay for a few days at the Iona hotel, where she comes across an ill-assorted group of American religious volunteers who also are guests. Dorothy cannot help but notice the friction between the volunteers, none of whom seem to be practicing much charity with one another; but she is not prepared for what might be murder when, while out on a sightseeing trip, one of the group falls into the sea and drowns. Everyone believes it to be an accident-except Dorothy. This is the third in this cozy series featuring middle-aged sleuth Dorothy. The first in the series, The Body in the Transept (Walker, 1995), won the Agatha Award for Best First Novel. Dorothy is an appealing character and the series quite well written, but it will probably be of little interest to most teen readers. Their parents and grandparents, however, might well enjoy this author's works. VOYA Codes: 3Q 1P S (Readable without serious defects, No YA will read unless forced to for assignments, Senior High-defined as grades 10 to 12).

Library Journal

Series (Trouble in the Town Hall, LJ 10/1/96) sleuth Dorothy Martin, an American who retired to England, confronts murder once again. While touring a Scottish island, she investigates the "accidental" death of a young American in Fingal's Cave. A delightful continuation.

Kirkus Reviews

Sixtyish Dorothy Martin, a widowed American now living in the English village of Sheresbury (Trouble in the Town Hall, 1996, etc.), happily accepts an invitation from friends Tom and Lynn Anderson to spend two weeks on the tiny island of Iona in Scotland. When Tom's illness delays the couple's departure, though, Dorothy makes the journey alone. Discovering that she's left the key to their cottage at home, Dorothy checks into a small hotel run by Hester and Andrew Campbell. A group from Illinois is also staying there—the winners of a contest to find the most community- dedicated members of various Chicago churches, with Rabbi Jake Goldstein subbing for a Quaker winner stricken with appendicitis. Iona is a stop on their tour, and no one seems happy about it—or with one another: Sister Teresa, a feminist nun in mufti; elegant Unitarian Grace Desmond; Hattie Mae Brown, a Baptist choir leader; Lutheran organist Chris Olafson; unctuous, unpopular youth leader Bob Williams; and short-fused garden-designer Janet Douglas, a Presbyterian. A sight-seeing excursion to Fingal's Cave makes a slow-moving Dorothy, arriving after others have left, the only witness when Bob Williams falls to his death from a rocky height. She becomes obsessed with the idea that the fall was murder, not accident, and spends the rest of her stay trying to prove it.

Some interesting characters, a graphic description of a humongous storm, and a picture of the island's craggy isolation are well done. But Dorothy's relentless and self-absorbed maunderings, along with a nearly nonexistent plot, bring the third in this series closer to chatty travel guide than mystery.