NO STRANGERS HERE by Carlene O’Connor

as establishing who is leaking information to the writers of The Monarch (think The Crown) television series the family is quasiobsessed with.

McKenna, Clara Kensington (304 pp.) $26.00 | Oct. 25, 2022 978-1-4967-3818-9

After a courtship marred by murders and family problems, Lyndy and Stella finally make it official through a marriage that confirms them as Lord and Lady Lyndhurst.

Things start to go wrong as soon as the happy couple checks into York’s best hotel in September 1905. Since the Honeymoon Suite they’ve reserved is occupied by chocolatier Horace Wingrove for one night, they reluctantly agree to take the Royal Suite. Lyndy tries to talk Wingrove into moving, but he refuses, asserting that it’s where he and his late wife spent their honeymoon. The night is far from quiet, for Wingrove has visitors, and the next morning, a maid discovers Wingrove dead. Even though Dr. Bell, who resides in the hotel, declares the death an accidental case of carbon monoxide poisoning, the hotel manager still calls the police, and Bell volunteers to tell Wingrove’s nephew, Morgan Amesbury-Jones, who’s staying at the hotel along with Wingrove’s secretary. Stella, realizing that most of the pillows are missing from Wingrove’s room, suspects murder when feathers fall from the chimney. Wingrove’s secretary and nephew, who inherits Wingrove’s famed chocolate company, join Stella’s meager list of suspects. Since the detective sergeant assigned to the case is mainly interested in protecting the royals who are visiting York for the unveiling of a statue, Stella must deal with thwarted romance, class differences, anti-royalists, and a missing chocolate formula while surviving her serendipitous honeymoon.

Nickless, Barbara Thomas & Mercer (367 pp.) $15.95 paper | Nov. 15, 2022 978-1-6625-0081-7

The theft of priceless papyrus fragments leads to murder and an international search for both the parchments and a killer.

Dr. Elizabeth Lawrence, head of the Chicago Institute of Middle Eastern Antiquities, excitedly receives a pair of documents known as the Moses papyri during a late-night rendezvous. When she abruptly goes missing, both Ronen Avraham, of the Israeli Antiquities Authority, and Elizabeth’s friend Dr. Evan Wilding, a professor of semiotics, linguistics, and paleography at the University of Chicago, undertake separate searches. Elizabeth’s recent diagnosis of cancer leads Evan to suspect suicide. Then police detective Addie Bisset, for whom Evan has worked previously as a consultant, calls with the news that Elizabeth’s been found dead in her car. When examining her body, Evan discovers an Egyptian cobra. It’s apparently the agent of death…and a message as well? Nickless’ character-driven mystery unfolds on a panoramic scale, presenting a huge cast of characters and working in interesting sidebars about mythology, paleontology, Middle East history, cobras, Chicago tourist attractions, and more. Addie focuses primarily on forensics, while Evan undertakes phone- and legwork. He alertly links the murder to Elizabeth’s recent trip to Israel. Once they team up, the investigative path takes the duo through numerous sketchy characters in the worlds of antiquities, academia, and the Mossad. Perro, a corgi Evan is dogsitting, proves an able sidekick and source of comic relief.

O’Connor, Carlene Kensington (336 pp.) $27.00 | Oct. 25, 2022 978-1-4967-3752-6

Ireland’s County Kerry provides the backdrop for O’Connor’s compelling series kickoff. DI Cormac O’Brien, who’s new to Dingle, must depend on the locals for insight when the body of racehorse owner Johnny O’Reilly is found on a beach along with 69 black stones spelling out the words “Last Dance.” O’Reilly was 69 years old, too. DS Neely provides Cormac with background on Last Dance, one of O’Reilly’s horses that was killed in a road accident more than 25 years earlier. It’s clear that O’Reilly was murdered elsewhere and his body brought to the beach in a boat. Only a child’s footprints are found nearby. Bucking the powers that be to work the case, Cormac learns that the O’Reillys and the family of Eamon Wilde, their veterinarian, have a complex history that could have led to murder. Eamon shows signs of dementia; his wife, Maeve, who used to go dancing with O’Reilly, reads tarot cards. Their son, Donnecha, who serves as caretaker of O’Reilly’s yachts, is a bit of a wild one. But it’s their daughter, Dr. Dimpna Wilde, that Cormac finds most fascinating. A talented veterinarian, tiny and beautiful, she’s the widow of a man who killed himself after swindling hundreds of Dubliners out of their life savings. Unable to pay her bills when her assets are seized, she returns to Dingle to help her father’s practice and try to extricate her family from a murder charge.