Murder at Cottonwood Creek (A Stella and Lyndy Mystery)
Millions of years ago, tiny horses roamed Montana. Their fossilized bones spark the plot of Clara McKenna’s latest novel. Set in Montana in 1906, Murder at Cottonwood Creek is the seventh addition to McKenna’s entertaining Stella & Lyndy Mystery series. Here Lyndy and Stella, formally known as Viscount and Viscountess Lyndhurst, arrive in Big Sky Country to visit Stella’s mother, Katherine Smith, and Lyndy’s father, the Earl of Atherly, an amateur paleontologist who is digging for equine fossils on the Smith ranch.
Horses run through this story—and through the whole mystery series. Beautiful, smart, high-spirited, and horsy, Stella is also a Dollar Princess, an American heiress who marries into the impecunious British aristocracy. Cultures inevitably clash, partly because Stella also has a knack for finding dead bodies and unraveling the mysteries behind them. But fortunately, her arranged marriage blossoms into a love match, and, despite occasional gruesome moments, McKenna’s series glows with good humor and charm. It is also well-researched and cleverly plotted. This novel is no exception, painting a generally convincing picture of rural Montana in 1906.
Katherine’s second husband, a taciturn rancher named Ned, owns the fossil site where fascinating discoveries are unearthed by the delighted but bumbling Lord Atherly and his scientific mentor, Professor Gridley. But murders keep happening on the dig. Could Gridley’s bitter rival, the villainous Dr. Moss, be responsible? (Their feud is based on the Bone Wars, a historic rivalry between pioneering paleontologists.) But there are many other possible suspects, so Stella and Lyndy struggle to untangle the mystery. Meanwhile, in a lighthearted, romantic subplot, they try to produce an heir to the earldom. The novel ends slightly clumsily, but nonetheless this adventurous Western ride is great fun.
