A Murder Most Unladylike Mystery, Book 9 - Death Sets Sail

It has been just a little over a year since I read the last Wells & Wong a/k/a Murder Most Unladylike mystery, and I hesitated starting this book.  It is the ninth book in the series, but it is also the LAST book in the series.  (sigh)  I miss the days of continuing, ongoing series, such as Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys (although can I really include the Hardy Boys, since they have not had a new book published in nearly three years now?).  It seems today's "series" are not really series at all - they are more like mini-series.  Most end after only three or four books, with very few making it to nine books, like this one.  (The only one currently being published that I can think of that has outlasted this one is the Friday Barnes series, which is up to book 13, I believe.)  But, I knew I had to read it sooner or later, so now was as good a time as any.

 

Death Sets Sail finds our two favorite young sleuths - Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong - suffering through the latest year at school, but with absolutely no mystery to solve.  While this is not the usual way these books start, the last sentence of Chapter 1 definitely gave me pause - and started me reading this book faster than any of the others I've read in the past.  After all, all of Hazel's talk about delaying in writing this book (the stories are mostly told through Hazel's point of view, as she writes down the adventures of The Detective Society in her casebook) had me wondering, but it was not until that last sentence that I realized this book truly was going to be the end in more than one way.  I mean, let's be serious, how many meanings can there be to the line, "Perhaps that way I can bring Daisy back to life."

 

Wait, what?!?! These are only fifteen-year old girls.  Surely, there is no way the author, Robin Stevens, was going to kill of one of her main characters in the final book in the series.  She wouldn't do that.  Would she?  The only way to find out was to read the book, and read I did!  From their long, uneventful days at Deepdean, to the invitation from the classmate, Amina El Maghrabi, to join her on a trip to Egypt to visit her family, to the long-last resignation of Hazel's father to the fact that his daughter truly is a detective, to the reuniting with Alexander Aracady and George Mukherjee of the Junior Pinkertons, to that fateful cruise down the Nile River where the girls, along with Mr. Wong and Hazel's two younger sisers (May and Rose), the Junior Pinkertons, and the very unusual Breath of Life Society all become embroiled in a murder mystery worthy of Agatha Christie herself (I mean, c'mon, surely you get the reference already - Death on the Nile?).  Right after Daisy, Hazel, Amina, Alexander, and George witness the most unusual meeting of the Breath of Life Society (a group of individuals, mostly British, who believe they are reincarnations of Egyptian pharoahs), a dead body turns up the next morning - with a sleepwalker standing over the body, covered in blood, crying out that she murdered her own mother!  Makes for a nice, easy case, right?  Wrong!

 

The cruise ship is simply full of suspects, all of them members of the Breath of Life Society - the question is, which one of them killed Theodora Miller, who believes she is the reincarnation of Hatshepsut (the sixth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, being the second woman to rule in her own right).  Was it really her sleepwalking daughter, Hephzibah (Heppy), who was treated like dirt by all of the members of the Society, including her own mother?  Or was it Daniel Miller, her son who blames her for the death of his friend Joshua some years before?  Could it have been Ida Doggett, who believes herself to be the reincarnation of Cleopatra and resents Theodora's control of the Society?  Or maybe it was Rhiannon Bartleby, whose nervousness and forgetfulness relates back to the death of Daniel's friend all those years ago?  Would Narcissus DeWitt, who believed himself the reincarnation of Thutmose III, murder Theodora in order to gain control of the Society's funds?  All of them had motive, and as the girls conduct their investigation, all of them had the opportunity and the means.  What begins as an open and shut case for the captain of the ship is not so "open and shut" as it appears, and Daisy and Hazel quickly discover that the plot to rid the Society of its pretentious leader is much more complex and devious than anyone suspects.

 

The girls get some unexpected help from Hazel's youngest sister, May, who manages to sneak away from her father's watchful eye time and time again, and providing the young detectives with some major clues that help them narrow down the list of suspects.  They also receive their usual help from the young Pinkertons, with Hazel's attraction to Alexander growing stronger by the day.  And even Amina manages to make herself useful, although Hazel can't help but notice the looks that keep passing between Daisy and Amina, and she wonders if perhaps Daisy will ever realize the feelings the Egyptian girl has for her.  It all leads up to a rather dramatic and very violent climactic confrontation, when the killer is revealed, grabs May and threatens to drop her overboard into the churning paddle wheel, and one young person's valiant sacrifice to save May's life and stop a killer from killing again...

 

But, wait!  That's not the end!  Hazel manages to provide readers with a bit of an epilogue, with a couple of surprises - some expected, some hoped for, and some not expected at all!  But it seems that while this book series may have reached its conclusion, the Detective Society will live on!   (And if you really want a taste of that, checkout Steven's sort-of-sequel series, The Ministry of Unladylike Activity, which follows an older May Wong on her own series of adventures, solving mysteries and stopping crimes!)

 

While not exactly the ending I would have liked for Hazel and Daisy, this book was without a doubt a superb read, and honestly, it is in full keeping with the growing characters of Hazel Wong and Daisy Wells, and Stevens gives the series a send-off that is worthy of the Wells and Wong' Detective Society.

 

RATING:  10  pieces of wire used as lock picks out of 10 for saving the very best Wells and Wong mystery for last, and giving readers an emotional send-off that makes us realize just how much we love these characters!