A Limited Edition Murder - the tenth Beyond the Page Bookstore Mystery

It's been well over a year since I read the last book in the Beyond the Page Bookstore mystery series by Lauren Elliott.  So, it's been over a year since poor Addie Greyborne's life was quite literally turned upside down by revelations regarding her parentage and regarding her fiance's previous marriage.  Thus, I suppose it was apropos that I waited to read this book, since I discovered upon reading the first few pages that there is quite the time jump from Dedication to Murder to this book - a year, in fact!  Thus, my timing was actually quite impeccable, since I have now spent the same time away from Greyborne Harbor that Addie did.  Of course, just because she's spent a year in England does not mean that poor Addie can get away from finding a dead body...

A Limited Edition Murder finds our intrepid sleuth trying to come to terms with everything that happened in that last book.  Not only did she find out she was not who she always thought she was for her entire life, but she also discovered that her fiance was still married to his first wife - and has a son by her!  So, Addie escapes to England, where she takes up residence in a cottage owned by her friend and best-selling author, Anthony Radcliffe, who is more than happy to have her visiting, since he is about to formally announce his engagement to Hailey Granger, and Lord Bentley and his new wife will be coming for the engagement party!  It's set to be the biggest event that the small village in West Yorkshire has seen in some time, and while Addie is not overly thrilled at the idea of hobnobbing with near royalty, she is happy for her good friend, and so she wants to support him. Besides, it has been a year, and she will be returning to the States the next weekend after the party.  She has delayed returning home long enough.  Of course, that is when fate intervenes, and Addie stumbles upon a dead body in the moors on the morning after!

I will admit, the opening chapters for this book had me a bit concerned.  Honestly, the writing felt a bit different than Elliott's previous books, and it left me a bit off-kilter.  I can't quite put my finger on what it was while I was reading that felt "off," but I do know one thing that definitely struck me as odd in the writing.  On page 39, when Addie accidentally spills champagne on a mysterious woman in a red and white floral dress and says, as she's trying to wipe up the liquid, "I hope the champagne doesn't settle in the intricate gold filigree setting of that exquisite sapphire."  I found that to be a very unusual wording for someone to actually speak - it reads more like a description an author would use when describing the necklace to the reader.  I tried saying the line out loud, just to hear how it sounds, and it came out very awkward.  And if it were just this one instance, I might have written it off (no pun intended!) as merely a poor choice of wording.  But it happens again just 9 pages later, when Addie is trying to calm an argument between Tony and Lord Bentley, and on page 48, she suggests to Lord Bentley, "why don't you take a seat behind that beautiful carved walnut desk?"  Again, that sounds like an author's description and not dialogue.  People don't naturally go around describing things in that kind of way when they are talking to each other, unless the topic of the discussion is that particular item.  But, honestly, there was more to the odd feeling as I was reading it than these lines of dialogue.

However, I can say that once Addie takes Pippi for her morning walk and comes across the body in the foggy moor, the typical Elliott writing I'm used to reading returns, and boy does it return in full force!  From that moment on, even without Serena or Paige or Marc or any of the other regular supporting cast members I've grown to love in the past nine books, the mystery became so engrossing I could not put it down.  It's not often I finish a 300+ page book in less than 24 hours, but this one is one of them.  While there was one minor clue early on that gave away the identity of the culprit a little too soon, there was still plenty of mystery to solve - such as who killed the step-daughter of Addie's boss at the Second Chance Books and Bindery some twenty years earlier, and how does that connect to this murder?  Is it because both murder victims were wearing the very same necklace before they were killed, yet the necklace was not found on their body after?  Or does it have something to do with that first edition Wuthering Heights that Tony gave to his fiance at the engagement party, only to discover the book actually belonged to Lord Bentley, from whom it had been stolen years ago?  Elliott makes great use of this temporary supporting cast, with some of the characters definitely growing on you (I would love to see Jasper Henderson show up again!  and that DI Parker certainly gives Addie a run for her money!), and she does manage to bring in Serena and Paige, albeit briefly.  Of course, there is one bit of news from the States that Addie learns that did not make me happy at all (and I am hoping that in the next book, that will change, because I've still got my hopes on Addie and Marc getting together in the end!).

The final chapters in the book are somewhat bittersweet, as Addie prepares to return home, having to leave her new friends behind (with some tearful farewells), as well as an unexpected revelation regarding one of the new characters.  Whether this will impact Addie's life going forward, we shall have to wait and see.

Elliott throws in a couple of things in the story that brought a smile to my face.  First is the name of the road that leads to the main shopping district of West Yorkshire, which is aptly named "Crooked Lane" (p. 2).  I realize it is nothing more than a coincidence, but way back in the day - back in 1936 to be exact! - Mildred Wirt, the original ghostwriter of the Nancy Drew books, had a mystery published that was called The Clue at Crooked Lane (The Clue at Crooked Lane).  Which, of course, makes the Nancy Drew reference on page 215 even more ironic!  I'm still holding out hope that since this series is premised on first editions of various famous books, one of these days, Elliott is going to have a mystery that centers around a Nancy Drew book (and if she were to ever do so, I know exactly which Nancy Drew book would make the perfect plot point that someone would kill for!).  Ah, well, one can always dream...

Thus, even though the book got off a rocky start, the murder got everything back on track and left me enjoying the book immensely by the time I finished it!  Now to sit back and wait to see what Elliott has in store for book eleven!

RATING:  9 buckets of composting food out of 10 for another well-plotted murder mystery that once again shows just how well Addie Greyborne can hold herself, even against arrogant, self-absorbed detectives from the English countryside!