Gull Gone by Donna Andrews
is the 21st Meg Landslow mystery. This time her grandmother Cordelia
has opened a craft center in the mountains of rural Virginia. Four generations
of family, plus students, teachers, and staff assemble for a summer of classes,
fine dining, relaxation, and summer camp for the kids. Everyone is happy until the
local police get called to investigate a spate of petty vandalism. This is
shortly followed by the murder of a teacher and another of a student.
***Spoiler Alert***
Motiveless murders.
Once the murderer is revealed, the
motivation is barely plausible. Meg herself didn’t believe the murder’s story. “This might sound plausible if I hadn’t known
Prine was stabbed in the back.”
The second murder had even sillier motivation. “I
figured another death would make them look less closely at the people who had
motives to kill Prine.”
The reader can’t be expected to
suspect someone without a plausible motive.
Red herrings of another color.
Red herrings can not be considered
misleading if all the red herring suspects are guilty, just not of the murder.
Confession before detection.
The murderer is not suspected until
the murderer commits an additional act which reveals their role. The detective
and investigators accomplish little until the culprit reveals their intentions.
The subplot and title involve Meg’s grandfather
looking for a long-thought-extinct-seagull.
A lighthearted mystery that solves
itself in spite of the efforts of Meg and several law enforcement agencies.
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