Review – The Corpse With The Sapphire Eyes by Cathy Ace

Dollycas’s Thoughts

Cathy Ace has a gift for these type of mysteries. The kind where you know someone in the building with you is a murderer. This time we are in a castle in Wales as Cait and Bud get ready for their wedding. The weather is awful and a bridge washes out meaning they and everyone else staying at the castle is stranded there. Cait’s sister, Sian, has flown in from Australia and Bud has plans for a special choir performance. Cait can deal with the weather but not another dead body. When she learns the choirmaster took a tumble down the stairs and broke his neck she knows she can relax because it was an accident the local authorities will take care of. But the bridge is out and the police could not respond and Cait finds herself questioning if the death may have been a murder. She and Bud decide to start an investigation of their own. Hopefully they will have things wrapped up quickly so they can get married as they had planned.

Castell Llwyd is quite a place and its inhabitants are quite the quirky bunch. Matriarch Alice Cadwallader owns the castle. At 92 years of age she is set in her ways and stubborn as a mule. She travels around the place at a pretty brisk clip in her wheelchair. Mrs. Jones is the cook and generally runs the house. Alice’s son. Owain and his daughter, Mair, her grandson, Idris and his wife Eirwen, all reside at the castle. Rhian Davies in the event planner for Castell Llwyd and her husband the choirmaster reside there as well. The choirmaster’s assistant and Alice’s nurse round out the band of suspects. Readers follow Bud and Cait on their investigation where the ruffle a few feathers and Cait uses her eidetic memory to try to put this puzzler of a mystery to rest.

I love going on these adventures with Cait and Bud. Wales sounds beautiful if you can look beyond the rainy weather. The castle is quite delightful with it’s up and down stairs to several floors and wings. You just know a place like this holds many secrets and so much history.

I know right away when I start reading one of these stories from Cathy Ace I will not be able to put them down and that was sure the case with The Corpse with the Sapphire Eyes. I like that my Kindle keeps track of my reading speed because I could see it increasing with each new page. The story builds and builds to a very surprising climax.

If you like you cozies on the traditional side like the great Agatha Christie, you will like this entire series!