I enjoy the Harbinder Kaur series, although this one didn't have much of Harbinder in it. ( )

The Last Word marks the return of Natalka, Edwin, and Benedict, the team of amateur sleuths introduced in The Postscript Murders. Their initial success inspired them to form a detective agency; in this novel they are hired to investigate the suspicious death of an older woman with ties to a community of writers. Edwin and Benedict go undercover, attending a writer’s retreat which leads them to a complicated web of relationships and, of course, more suspicious deaths. The trio make points with local law enforcement when they reveal their connections to Detective Sergeant Harbinder Kaur, and it’s all hands on deck to solve the crime.

As they get to the bottom of the case, related storylines further develop each character. The tone is light and cozy, but Elly Griffiths doesn’t shy away from exploring contemporary issues. Although she has gone on record saying the Harbinder Kaur novels are not a series in the traditional sense, The Last Word appears to set the stage for more adventures with the detective agency, which could be a winning formula. ( )

Natalka and Edwin are perfect if improbable partners in a detective agency. At 84, Edwinregularly claims that he’s the oldest detective in England. He is a master of surveillance, deploying his age as a cloak of invisibility. Natalka, a Ukrainian-born and more than fifty years his junior, is a math whizz, who takes any cases concerning fraud or deception. Despite a steady stream of minor cases, Natalka is frustrated. She loves murder, as she’s fond of saying, and none have come the agency’s way. That is until local writer Melody Chambers dies.
Melody’s daughters are convinced that their mother has been murdered. Edwin thinks that Melody’s death is linked to that of an obituary writer who predeceased many of his subjects. Edwin and Benedict go undercover to investigate and are on a creative writing weekend at isolated Battle House when another murder occurs. ( )

When one author dies, and then another, it could just be coincidence. But when there are several other deaths, and there are threads of connection between them, things start looking suspicious, to say the least. Edwin and Natalka are now officially working together as a detective agency, with Benedict helping out in a pinch. When they're asked to look into one of the murders, they discover that a nearby writers' retreat was visited by several of the dead authors. When they reach out to Harbinder, now working on the London police force, they discover yet another connection. Can they all work together to solve the puzzle before the murderer strikes again?

I always enjoy Griffiths' mysteries, and this was no exception. As with her other books, I like the character development and the through-running plot as much as I enjoy the mystery aspect, or maybe more than (this one seemed a little shaky to me, but I was enjoying the read, so I didn't nit-pick). A fun mystery with a variety of interesting characters, technically the fourth book in the series, but you really only need to read The Postscript Murders to get the background on these characters. ( )

Natalka, Benedict and Edwin are approached about the death of a romance author by the woman’s daughter: she is convinced that her mother’s much younger second husband deliberately killed her in order to gain ownership of her large house, despite the fact that the death was attributed to a heart attack. As it happens, a couple of other writers have also recently died, and one of Benedict’s former colleagues at the seminary suspects that one of them was also murdered. Because the various authors had all visited a weekend writing retreat before their deaths, Edwin and Benedict go undercover to the retreat to see what they can see, but what they find is another dead writer, presumed a suicide but subsequently deemed suspicious. The investigating officers, knowing that they know DI Harbinder Kaur, agree to accept their help in solving the case, but are the deaths even connected? And then another death occurs…. This is, I think, the fourth book in the Harbinder Kaur series, although she herself is barely in the story this time, except to save the day of course. Nevertheless, the three co-leads (to whom we had previously been introduced in earlier books) are quite entertaining characters - Edwin in his late 80s but still spry, Benedict the ex-monk now working as a coffee shop owner and Natalka, the beautiful Ukrainian care-giver and sleuth who loves Benedict, are all interesting and believable, especially Natalka who is navigating life in Britain with her refugee mother while her younger brother is fighting in the just-begun war there (the book is set in 2022). I’d always love to have more Harbinder, possibly London’s only lesbian Sikh police detective, but I will take whatever I can get about her, or really about any character written by Elly Griffiths. Some people have difficulty with Ms. Griffiths’ writing style, which tends to the third-person present tense, but I just become completely absorbed in her storytelling and don’t even notice that authorial choice anymore. Recommended! ( )