LESSONS FOR SLEEPING DOGS

Charlie Cochrane

Cambridge Fellows Mysteries #12

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BLURB

Cambridge, 1921

When amateur sleuth Jonty Stewart comes home with a new case to investigate, his partner Orlando Coppersmith always feels his day has been made. Although, can there be anything to solve in the apparent mercy killing of a disabled man by a doctor who then kills himself, especially when everything takes place in a locked room?

But things are never straightforward where the Cambridge fellows are concerned, so when they discover that more than one person has a motive to kill the dead men—motives linked to another double death—their wits get stretched to the breaking point.

And when the case disinters long buried memories for Jonty, memories about a promise he made and hasn’t kept, their emotions get pulled apart as well. This time, Jonty and Orlando will have to separate fact from fiction—and truth from emotion—to get to the bottom of things.

REVIEW by Christopher Hawthorne Moss

The classic locked-room mystery, but with all our darlings, Jonty and Orlando, solving it.  Add to this an element of the Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name, which throws our boys into a dilemma.  Can they discuss the two deaths, four really, without revealing their own secret, and how can two men in love feel about the misuse of power in same-sex relationships?  Add to this Jonty’s own past trauma and Orlando’s concern for him, and you have a quintessential Cambridge Fellows mystery.

The boys typical repartee brings the beloved Fellows relationship into the fore for those of us who are absolutely passionate fans… yes, me included.  Jonty calls Orlando “Idiot!” and Orlando is as enchanted by his lover as always, and they get some bed time, making us all happy.  But watching these two solving a very difficult mystery is as much a delight as the personal stuff.  Orlando solves a code hidden in the pages of a tell all biography, while Jonty struggles with a promise he made but had not followed up on, and the two involve Arianne and Lavinia to round out their own particular talents.  In other words, there is something for any Cambridge Fellows mystery aficionado in this book.

And lo and behold, I just noticed I have missed another of the mysteries… making my salivary glands overproduce!