The 7th Mourner by Dorothy Gardiner

This Crime Club mystery features a cover which looks more gothic than the story inside. Wild Scottish moors, a gathering of related strangers at a burial, and an inheritance bequeathed in complicated ways. Although it has the right ingredients, it sounds more exciting than it is.

Harriet Orchard changed her will on her deathbed. A prominent woman in her Colorado community, she requests her ashes returned home to Rowenmuir, Scotland, after her 50 years in America. Local Sherrif Moss Magill is tasked with the job, all expenses paid. In fact, he will receive $100,000 for doing it.

Her estranged sister Lizzie Farquhar still resides at Highland Palace, since beginning as a housemaid in her teens, and maid when it was turned into a hotel. 40 years ago, young Lizzie caught her beau Tom Gourley kissing Harriet, and the sisters had not spoken since.

Arriving in Scotland, Magill meets the heirs: young niece Alison (mousey and shy, with her overbearing mother Regina in tow), nephew Maxwell, Harriet's husband's nephew Ronald (a used car salesman bringing his brassy blonde wife), and Tom Gourley's grandson Kenneth. Each will receive $100,000 for attending, and Lizzie gets $300,000. If any of them forfeit (or die), their share will go to charity.

Highland Palace is a crenelated castle, complete with candlesticks and grand wooden staircases. No electricity or phone lines. It has been closed for years, yet the owners Boyd and Morag kindly allow Lizzie to stay on. Seven years ago Boyd's first wife died of prolonged illness, and the rumoured scandal is Lizzie fed her poisonous mushrooms collected from the moor. The trial came back Not Proven. She is old now and shouldn't be disturbed, and helping themselves to the monthly allowance checks Harriet sent Lizzie is very nice.

With all this backstory, more should have been happening over the next few days besides walking the highlands and having dinners. Kenneth is a mushroom farmer, and Lizzie still collects wild ones from the moor. After several meals of creamed mushrooms, and talk of the poisonous 'death cap' variety which killed the first Mrs. Boyd, the reader is ready for them to cause some havoc. Alison is berated by her mother Regina, a real shrew who plans to take over her inheritance. She certainly won't abide Alison's new romance with Kenneth. Lizzie makes a few insane outbursts - it could be an act, but why?

The day before the ashes are interred atop Bein Borach, they all visit Inverness for an outing. All three women wear identical raincoats - and someone is pushed into the street during a bagpipe parade. It doesn't take a mushroom to knock them off.

This is a very light mystery, with not much happening. A house full of relatives who don't know each other, with thousands of dollars up for grabs deserves better. Moss Magill saunters through like the Andy Griffith-type small town sheriff he is, never breaking out as the crime solver he could be - however, it looks like Gardiner wrote three other mysteries starring Magill. I read this because of the Crime Club designation, but found it less than the "top drawer entertainment calculated to keep me in suspense".

At just 128 pages, it was fine for an afternoon.

1958 / Paperback / 128 pages