August 30, 1993
With 19 Henry Tibbett mysteries and still going strong, Moyes centers her latest plot around a thoroughly modern, self-sufficient young woman. Londoner Susan Gardiner unexpectedly inherits the Blue Moon, an old unused inn in Essex, from her great-uncle Sebastian. Although her distant cousin James suggests selling the place, Susan decides to turn the inn into a fashionable restaurant--despite the animosity of a rival inn owner and local rumors that her great-aunt Margaret's drowning in a nearby river 20 years earlier was actually murder. Three months after the restaurant's successful opening, a customer dies of mushroom poisoning, bringing Chief Superintendent Tibbett on the scene. After a second poisoning, Henry determines that someone is determined to close the Blue Moon and begins to delve into the facts and suppositions about Margaret's death in order to find out who and why. For die-hard fans, Moyes may not provide enough of Henry and his perceptive wife Emmy in this tightly woven cozy, but game Susan and the rest of the cast are entertaining company.