A review by littletaiko
Murder at the Mansion: A Victorian Village Mystery by Sheila Connolly

3.0

This is the first in a new series by the rather prolific author. The story opens with Kate living in Baltimore and successfully running a hotel. Her best friend from high school has come to town to ask her to help save the small town that they grew up in. The town has fallen on hard times and they need some ideas on what can be done if anything. Kate agrees to help. Not soon after she gets to town, her high school nemesis has been murdered. In a switch from the usual cozy, Kate isn't under suspicion nor is anyone related to her. She actually isn't doing that much investigating into the death, but instead is focused on her plan to help revitalize the town. In fact the book really doesn't feel like a mystery at all as the resolution was rather anti-climatic and not terribly surprising. I loved that she did a crossover with one of her other series. An added bonus was learning more about Clara Barton - I was unaware that she ran The Office of Missing Soldiers after the Civil War and helped find thousands of missing soldiers