{"id":2424,"date":"2021-10-07T18:20:35","date_gmt":"2021-10-07T18:20:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/?p=2424"},"modified":"2023-03-11T16:37:21","modified_gmt":"2023-03-11T16:37:21","slug":"death-in-cornwall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/?p=2424","title":{"rendered":"Death in Cornwall"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s been over a decade since we\u2019ve heard from Cambridge DCI Arthur St. Just and criminologist cum mystery writer Portia De\u2019Ath, now his fianc\u00e9. In coastal Cornwall for a mini-vacay, the two can\u2019t resign themselves to just lying on the beach. Instead, they\u2019re busy scoping out the town, sniffing out controversy\u2014especially the proposed slipway the fisher men and women want to build\u2014and meeting up with the locals. The latter includes the self-made aristocrat Lord Bodwally, who wants Portia to help him with his memoirs. But when they visit Bodwally\u2019s grand estate, they find him lying in a pool of blood, his right carotid artery severed. And with that, St. Just is off and running as he tracks down the murderer. <strong>Given that this is a short book, Malliet does three things really well.<\/strong> First, we learn a lot about Cornwall and the Cornish people\u2014the Cornwall tourist bureau should sign her up. Two, the tension between wealthy incomers\u2014seeking a weekend home and driving up the cost of housing\u2014and the residents is one that is playing out in many communities, and here it is especially well-handled. Finally, this is one of the few mysteries that addresses the experiences of COVID-19; most series just skip over it as though it never happened. Malliet sets the novel after what the characters call \u201cPlague Time\u201d and doesn\u2019t hesitate to discuss the impact the pandemic had on this small Cornish town. It\u2019s refreshing. <strong>Cozy readers will be happy to welcome back this duo.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s been over a decade since we\u2019ve heard from Cambridge DCI Arthur St. Just and criminologist cum mystery writer Portia De\u2019Ath, now his fianc\u00e9. In coastal Cornwall for a mini-vacay,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2423,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[158,67],"class_list":["post-2424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review","tag-police-procedurals","tag-traditional"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/formidable\/4\/Cornwall-400x400.jpg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/formidable\/4\/Cornwall-400x600.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"Brian Kenney","author_link":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/?author=1"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}