Anxious to move on after the sudden death of her husband, Patrick, Maren allows herself to be wooed by the handsome and charming Englishman, Ian Southcott. Now married to him for three months, she has reason to suspect that he’s an antiquities thief, but she’s not sure how to extract herself and her daughter from the situation.
When her sister Rachael calls from Great Britain, asking for her help, Maren realizes this could be her way out. Leaving her daughter with relatives, Maren goes to her sister’s aid, thinking this could be the start of her separation from Ian.
Rachael is a scholar and has been researching the life of King Arthur, anxious to prove that he really did exist and was not just a legend. There was rumored to be a document that could prove Arthur’s existence, but no one knew where the document was. Now Rachael believes she’s found a clue to the location, and she wants Maren to help her find it. This could change the entire face of early Briton history.
Confiding her find to her dinner companion, Rachael doesn’t realize the mistake she’s made. Murdered the night before Maren is to arrive, Rachael’s secret goes to the grave with her, and Maren shows up at her sister’s apartment in time to see the body go out on a stretcher. The Chief Inspector, a man named Llewellyn with Cary Grant looks, confirms her worst fears—her sister is dead.
Maren returns home for the funeral, and overhears her husband on the telephone. He knows a lot more than he’s letting on about Rachael’s discovery, and she hears him threaten Maren’s daughter’s life. Putting her into hiding, Maren heads back to England, knowing that she must find whatever clue Rachael had found so she can bring her killer to justice.
“The Arthurian Omen” is a beautifully packaged, fast-paced mystery that grabbed my attention from the start. Written with echoes of Mary Higgins Clark here and there, we get suspense, we get a mystery, and we get a taste of Wales in one fell swoop.
(This book was published in 2008 by Shadow Mountain.)
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