Book Review: Diamonds of Death (Lady Alkmene Callender Mysteries #2) by Vivian Conroy

Goodreads Book Summary:  

The second Lady Alkmene Callender Mystery

A family of secrets…

After hearing about the vicious murder of her relation, Lord Winters, Lady Alkmene is intrigued to find out that the cat burglar found standing over his body, the safebox emptied of jewels, might not be the murderer after all…

Reporter Jake Dubois believes an innocent man has been imprisoned and turns to Lady Alkmene to assist him in uncovering the truth and finding the real killer – who might just be one of Winters’ own family.

This mystery will test Lady Alkmene to the limit. As she and Jake delve into family secrets, Lady Alkmene isn’t sure who she can trust or who is telling the truth. And even the connection between them might not be enough to save Lady Alkmene from becoming the next victim in search of the diamonds of death…

Thoughts and review: 

I thoroughly enjoyed book one in this series and last month I bought book two. They are available on Kindle for under USD$3 and are short reads, the books are perfect for the weekend. I found book two and the main characters to be as delightful as the first book. The partnership between Lady Alkmene (I cannot pronounce that name, in all honesty, I have not even tried to say it out loud) and reporter Jake Dubois is more established and their developing friendship is believable.  This is something I  appreciate and so far there has been no romance to distract from the investigations. During, the first book I was certain that there would be insta-love but Vivian Conroy surprised us readers and kept the characters focused on their investigations. And strangely enough now that I have read two books in the series with the pair working together, I now want them to start a relationship.

In terms of character development and roles, I appreciated that Alkmene, who the series is named for, played a far more assertive role in book. Rather than being a tag along with Jake, in Diamonds of Death the pair are undercover and it is Alkmene who is in the position of lead detective.

This is is a cozy mystery and a who-dunnit and there was a long list of suspects and I am happy to report that I did not guess the killer. In fact the character who I was dead set on being the killer turned out to be quite clueless and a victim as well. I am happy with how the story and investigation wrapped. I like this series and I am quite surprised that I find myself hoping that book three, Deadly Treasures, which I started reading as soon as I completed book two is not the end of the Lady Alkmene Callendar mysteries.