Death at the Belvedere by Sue Williams

Unlicensed investigator Cass Tuplin, runs the Takeaway in the small town of Rusty Bore. Her smart sister Helen asks Cass to retrieve a first edition book from the apartment of her boyfriend. The only complication is that the boyfriend, Ben Langan, has died in suspicious circumstances and for reasons of her own, Helen does not want to get involved in the police investigation. Unable to refuse her sister, and against all her better judgements Cass travels to Melbourne and the Belvedere Apartments. From here the story becomes very convoluted, involving 89 year old friend Ernie, sons Brad and Dean (a policeman) and Cass’s paramedic boyfriend Leo. Is the death linked to the book, drugs or the pharmaceuticals place where Ben worked? This is the fourth in the series featuring Cass Taplin and I can only surmise that the characters and sense of place were established in earlier books as there was little to anchor this story and the characters were poorly developed behaving in quite random ways. The story rambled on in random directions lacking focus. Advertised as ‘comedy crime genre” I didn’t find it particularly funny but for me slapstick works better as a visual joke; maybe readers of the previous books might be more engaged. At one stage sister Helen tells Cass “Yeah right, you give me this bullshit that you’re not involved but then you get involved and fuck it up. Same old story.” p. 142. Sounds about right!

Themes: Murder, Private investigator, Medical research.

Sue Speck