In Fatality in F by Alexia Gordon, Dunmullach, Ireland has had six months to recover from their last murder and the ghostly curse that almost killed all the firstborn men in the town. But nothing will stay peaceful, even at a flower show. American musician and music teacher Dr. Gethsemane Brown sees her closest teacher friend, Frankie Grennan, get into an argument with his chief competition for the top prize at The International Rose Hybridizers’ Association. Roderick Jacoby is a top executive at a pharmaceutical company who sees himself as a Don Juan and is about to have his fifth ex- wife. One of Jacoby’s conquests was Frankie’s ex- wife, whom he seduced to break up Frankie’s marriage. So when Jacoby is found bludgeoned to death, Inspector Sutton, who has lost no love for Gethsemane and thus her friends, immediately decides that Frankie is his criminal.
However, Gethsemane is interested in the fact that Frankie keeps receiving bouquets of flowers whose mix offers meanings of love and declarations of his innocence. Even more suggestive is the fact that the village of Dunmullach never solved the cold case of the Flower Shop Killer from the 1970s in which the meanings of flowers played a role. The killer would be too old now to have killed Jacoby, but perhaps a copycat is at work. Gethsemane works super hard with her roommate, the ghost of the great composer Eamon McCarthy, to clear Frankie’s name and find the real killer.
Fatality in F is the fourth book in the Gethsemane Brown series, and I appreciated this as much as the earlier books. I love the character of Gethsemane, a very strong African American woman who is one of the top musicians in her field. Whenever danger approaches, she hears in her head the strains of music by Tchaikovsky, and she copes with stress but reciting Negro League baseball statistics. I appreciate seeing a strong woman, but even more, I appreciate seeing an African American main character in a cozy mystery, something very rare to find in this genre. Gethsemane exhibits force loyalty to her friends and a depth to her character that endears her to us readers. The close friendship between Gethsemane and Eamon deepens further in this book, especially after Eamon made a significant personal sacrifice to help her and the community in the previous book, Killing in C Sharp. In Fatality in F, Eamon assists in the details of the investigation and uses his special powers as a ghost to save Gethsemane’s life.
I also appreciated all the details of research that went into this book. For one thing, it contains many details of the meanings of different flowers and provides a wide range of floral selections. In addition, there are fascinating details about the pharmaceutical industry and the development of new medications. Many readers may be unaware of this, but Gordon works as a physician during the day and a writer at night. After finishing all her medical training and starting to establish a medical practice, she went back to school to study creative writing. So this author knows her subject matter and makes it highly interesting.
The audio edition of this book is performed by Helen Duff, who does an excellent job of narrating this book. Using voices that seem perfect for each character and highly believable accents, Duff makes this book a delight to listen to and gives one of the best performances I’ve heard this year.
Fatality in F was a creative, fun book well worth reading, especially in its audio format. I am impressed by the different details that make each book in the series seem original. I highly recommend this book and give it five stars!
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