Loco Motive-Mary Daheim

Loco Motive
Mary Daheim
Harper, Sep 14 2010, $23.99
ISBN: 9780061774768

In Seattle, Washington at the Hillside Manor Bed & Breakfast, daredevil Wee Willie Weevil performs a stunt from the roof that fails. His assistant Pepper Gundy blames the fiasco on the B&B and informs owner Judith McMonigle Flynn to expect a lawsuit.

Needing to escape from the guests including her daughter and grandchildren, Judith, her and her cousin Serena Jones and take the cross country Amtrak Empire Builder to Boston on vacation. Their husbands will meet them there. They use the rails out of deference to Renie who fears flying. Also on the train are injured Willie, Pepper, and another of his assistants. Soon after the unhappy reunion, a train attendant disappears, an accident forces the train to stop in Big Sky Country, and Willie is dead in a sleeper.

The latest Bed-and-Breakfast amateur sleuth (see Vi Agra Falls) is a wonderful whodunit although at times there is too much side baggage even on a cross country train. The cast is sold as the sleuthing cousins work the homicide though their motive for doing so is weak. Still fans of the long running B&B mysteries will enjoy riding the rails with the lead females as they leave Hillside manor for a respite only to investigate a homicide.

Harriet Klausner