In Doom with a View by Kate Kingsbury, Melanie West and her grandmother, Liza Harris, have opened up a B&B they call the Merry Ghost Inn, named after the ghost Liza has dubbed Orville who audibly laughs from time to time. Six book club members from a senior citizen group are spending a week in her small community of Sully’s Landing along the Oregon coast. On their first night, they have local handyman Nick Hazelton do a magic show, but guest Walter Dexter spends the whole show heckling Nick. The next day, Melanie takes her dog, Max, for his morning walk when she comes across the body of the unpleasant Walter lying on the driveway. Assuming that Walter died of a heart attack, Melanie is disturbed to learn that her guest has fallen from the balcony, which was sabotaged by being sawed through to make it collapse.
Realizing that if the murder isn’t solved by the end of the week, the group scheduled for the next week won’t be able to arrive, Melanie and Liza determine to set out to solve the murder themselves. After all, they successfully solved a cold case murder just a few months earlier. The pair soon learns that each of the guests is holding back something from the police, making them work to uncover hidden secrets, even staging a fake seance to try to scare the truth out of everyone. In ther meantime, the laughing ghost that occupies the Merry Ghost Inn seems to be taking a hand in the case as well.
I thought this book had a lot more interesting details and characters than the previous book. I enjoyed the use of the locked room mystery trope, where the murder takes place within a confined space, forcing the suspects to be limited to a set group of individuals (think of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, which takes place inside a train). The characters have fun features, though the guests didn’t stand out too strongly as individuals to me. However, I really enjoyed the addition of Cindy as the B&B’s assistant.
Tavia Gilbert performs the audio version of this book, and in general she does a good job, but from time to time I noticed inconsistencies in the wording or names. It is possible that these issues could arise in the original text itself and not be Gilbert’s responsibility, but I would think a good narrator would notice if one character is being named when another is being described.
I enjoyed Dead and Breakfast, the first book in this series, but found it light on details. Doom with a View had a stronger plot and more characters with depth, making it a better book all around. I give this four stars.
To purchase this book for yourself, click here on Amazon.
