How to Get Away With Myrtle

 

How to Get Away With Myrtle / Elizabeth C. Bunce
NY: Algonquin Young Readers, c2020.
346 p.

After reading Premeditated Myrtle, the first book in this series, I eagerly got my hands on the second volume. (The third, Cold Blooded Myrtle, isn't out until October, sadly!) 

In this outing, Myrtle's father is at a law conference in France, and has sent Myrtle for a seaside holiday with her governess Miss Judson, and her intimidatingly proper Aunt Helena. The idea is to get Myrtle away from crime and murder in town, but of course, things do not go as planned. 

A woman is killed on their excursion train, and so Myrtle is now intimately involved in a murder from the moment they step off the train and into their holiday location. This big hotel has been restored, but nothing else in this small town has been as yet -- even the pier is closed off and decrepit. So Myrtle has a few mysteries to investigate; what happened to the woman on the train, and why is the town so secretive and opposed to the flashy new hotel owner? 

She finds a co-conspirator in the son of the hotel manager, who has the convenient hobby of photography. This leads to some danger and intrigue for them both. Miss Judson takes her own tack, befriending a salesman staying at the hotel (which puts Myrtle's nose a bit out of joint). Meanwhile, proper Aunt Helena is arrested for the murder of the woman on the train, since it was her sewing scissors used to do the deed. All three of these women turn out to be quite a dab hand at both investigating, and intimidating others into both confessions and schemes of their own.

The non-idyllic seaside setting turns this into a perfect Victorian novel. It's a bit of a 'closed room' mystery, with its contained set of characters. The setting plays a big role in the mystery, and is described wonderfully. 

Another hit in this series, and one in which we learn more of the various characters and their relationships. I delighted in the setting and in the growth of all three characters. Definitely looking forward to the fall release of the next book, which has a Christmas timeframe -- Victorian Christmas mystery = my very favourite kind.