After reading Disturbing the Dead, book three in Kelly Armstrong’s A Rip Through Time series, I knew that I was going to eagerly reach for more in this time travel historical mystery/fiction series. While I’ve picked up the first two book with plans to see exactly how the main character ended up where she is, I couldn’t resist diving into the next chapter, Death at a Highland Wedding.

As an assistant to undertaker Duncan Gray, modern-day homicide detective Mallory Atkinson has adapted well to her life in Victorian Scotland. The skills she has gained in her real life in the present give her an edge when it comes to solving mysterious deaths. Fortunately, the people she lives with are aware of who she really is and that she’s living in the body of their former housemaid (the explanation of exactly what happened is detailed in each book to catch the reader up) and have helped her adapt to her new circumstances.

When Hugh McCreadie, detective and friend of Duncan Gray, asks Duncan, his sister, Isla, and Mallory to come to the Scottish Highlands with him for his sister’s wedding, they are all too happy to oblige. Hugh has been estranged from his family for quite some time after breaking an engagement they had arranged. The ex, Violet, happens to be the sister of Archie Cranston, who is marrying Hugh’s sister Fiona. Awkward! Fiona has asked Hugh to come to her wedding and even though it will mean seeing Violet again, Hugh knows it’s the right thing to do. He also hopes to be able to apologize to Violet and provide a better explanation as to why he abruptly broke their engagement.

At the McCreadie’s rural estate, the guests settle in for pre-wedding festivities. One thing that mars their enjoyment (besides the obvious tension between Hugh and Violet) is Müller the gamekeeper. He’s a recent addition to the staff, recommended by Archie’s friend, Ezra, another of the wedding guests. A surly German, Müller has installed several lethal animal traps around the property that the guests must be careful to avoid. One of them had even caught and killed a cat, leaving several kittens orphaned – though when Mallory and Gray examine the cat, they realize it must have already been dead before being in the trap. The small mystery of how the cat was killed, and how it ended up being made to appear as if it were killed by the trap is soon dwarfed by a bigger tragedy; one of the houseguests is found murdered and Archie has been arrested for the killing. It will take all of Duncan and Mallory’s skills to catch a killer before one of them ends up dead themselves.

A Wedding! The Highlands! Murder! What’s not to like in this engaging and page turning read? The setting is well described and the author has clearly researched the time period and culture such that we get lessons through Mallory’s eyes as she continues to adjust to her new life. There is a growing romantic attachment between Mallory and Duncan, stifled by the expected norms of the time with respect to their positions and unmarried selves. Indeed, when Duncan proposes a marriage of convenience to Mallory so that they can be seen together in private without causing harm to either of their reputations, Mallory is initially quite offended since her feelings for him are quite real. Though it causes a small rift between them, she eventually acknowledges that it’s Duncan’s way of protecting her. (Her reaction is a bit over the top, which is the only thing that led me to downgrade the book from an A).

But all that aside, it is the mysterious cat-killing and the bigger, more ominous death of a wedding guest that have the pair delving deeper into the lives of the secondary characters. Tensions are already running high due to the strain between the two families over the previous broken engagement, and there appears to be no loss of motivation for more than one of the characters to be guilty of the murder, including the arrested Archie. As Mallory and Gray investigate, they uncover some ugly secrets that threaten to ruin more than one family, leading to several possible suspects. How the author weaves the threads together into a tightly plotted and intriguing mystery is what makes Death at a Highland Wedding such an enjoyable read. I’m happy to recommend this latest book in the series and look forward to finding out what Gray and Mallory get up to next!