Kilt Dead in Maine

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(Written, obviously, in the beginning of January 2013)

The first week in January, I finished reading one of the best novels I’ve read in the past six months. Sure, I’ve read a lot of books since last summer, and most of them have been enjoyable, even excellent reads. But I’ve been exclaiming about Emma Donoghue’s Room ever since I started it; even more so when I finished it.

There are, however, a couple of good reasons why I won’t be reviewing Room in this week’s column. The book club at the bookstore doesn’t meet until the evening of Tuesday, January 22nd, so I don’t want to tell everyone my opinions this far out. I don’t want to give spoilers or unduly influence other members’ experience of reading the book. Also, as I type this column on Sunday night, the 13th (why, no, editor, I don’t write my columns at the last minute! Whatever makes you think I’d procrastinate like that?), there is still a week and a half to tempt other folks to read Room and join us at this month’s meeting. I guarantee you’ll fly through the pages of this book: even if you are just reading this column on Thursday or Friday just before the book club meeting, I’m certain you can finish Room in a weekend. It is that compelling.

Nevertheless, it still being obvious how much I wavered in my decision, I finally asked my husband and bookstore business partner – the person best for me when bouncing around both personal and “professional” book reviews – “which should I do this week’s column on, Room by Emma Donoghue, or those Scottish mysteries by Kaitlyn Dunnett?” Knowing my enthusiastic response to both authors, and the possibilities for discussing each, Kevin didn’t hesitate. “The Dunnett mysteries,” he answered, “because they’re more fun. Besides, you can always do a review on Room later, after the book club meeting.”

And that is why, loyal readers, you’ll have to take a teaser on Room, and hear about how much I have enjoyed Kaitlyn Dunnett’s cozy mystery series about the little western Maine town of Moosetookalook and its charming cast of characters. At the ripe old age of twenty-seven, Liss MacCrimmon finds her career as a professional dancer cut short when she severely injures her knee. Though surgery guarantees she will walk normally again, Liss can never risk going back to dancing the high-impact Scottish folk dances of her troupe, Strathspey (think Riverdance, only the heritage of the Scots, not the Irish). Now instead of touring the U.S. as the lead dancer fifty weeks out of the year, Liss returns home to her small town in Maine, to continue to heal up and decide what comes next. In the meantime, she’ll work in her Aunt Margaret’s shop, the Scottish Emporium, purveyors of custom-order kilts, beautiful tartan fabrics, shortbread, canned haggis, Celtic jewelry, books on Scotland, and many niche gifts. Though Tandy’s Music Shop takes care of major musical instruments, including the bagpipes, the Scottish Emporium does have practice chanters, pennywhistles, and drumsticks. They even sell the sgian dubh, the small, traditional “black dagger” of the Scots.

While the sgian dubh is not the murder weapon used in the first book, Kilt Dead, it does make a gruesome appearance in The Corpse Wore Tartan, the fourth book in the series, when the Scottish Heritage Appreciation Society hosts their annual Burns Night Dinner at the Spruces, a resort overlooking Moosetookalook. Liss’s boyfriend, Dan Ruskin, and his family, have slaved to re-open the old-fashioned resort, hoping to bring more tourism to their area. Having the Robert Burns Dinner scheduled there over a winter weekend is a great foray into the kind of business they hope to attract, especially since the dinner is an annual event. But the staff at the Spruces notices right away that Scottish Heritage Appreciation Society has a shared history beyond Scottish ancestry, and, before you know it, a fresh body is found in a storage room, throat apparently slit with his own sgian dubh. In true Agatha Christie style, a huge snowstorm blows in, trapping all the guests at the hotel for several days, without electricity and with a murderer in their midst.

It’s no surprise that Liss is often getting herself in the midst of “work better left to professional detectives, Ms. MacCrimmon,” since she adores murder mysteries, shying away from the forensic stories, but loving the amateur sleuths. Liss, her friend Angie (who runs the local bookstore), and all the small business owners of Moosetookalook are thrilled when the Spruces hosts a mystery writers’ conference in Scotched. Sadly, a famous writer falls to her death at the local lovers’ leap, and the circumstances are too strange not to ask questions.

In many ways a typical “cozy” mystery series, but with plenty of Maine local color and a fresh idea with the addition of Scottish-American heritage theme, Liss MacCrimmon and the gang are a welcome new act in the crowded field of fun, light mysteries.