Review: Murder on the Pilgrims Way

Murder on the Pilgrims Way by Julie Wassmer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Dolly is taking Pearl on holiday - but it's a surprise. They are staying at a recently renovated manor house owned by an Italian woman called Simona. She previously owned a similar establishment in Italy but had to sell it to pay off her ne'er-do-well husband Jake. Dolly and Pearl are two of the first guests of the Villa Pellegrini as it has been renamed, alongside several of Simona's close friends and her godfather Marshall, who happens to be an old friend of Dolly's. There's the rather brash Australian Lydia and her English fiancé Steve, former model Georgina, Dolly and Pearl, Simona's friend the slightly fey Anemone, close friend and wine buff Frank, and the staff Robert and his wife Maria.

Although initially charmed by the fabulous manor house on the banks of the river, Pearl is annoyed to discover that the weekend is billed as a weekend with celebrity chef Nico Caruso, as an instinctive chef herself, Pearl has no desire to be 'taught' recipes, especially by someone whose restaurant chain disintegrated in bankruptcy.

First impressions do not change Pearl's mind, Nico sweeps in and dismisses the dinner which Maria has spent all afternoon preparing, insisting that the guests eat something he has brought from Italy. Then later that evening after sparks fly (and not in a good way) across the dinner table the guests are interrupted by a very drunk Jake threatening to haunt Simona and never let her get away from him. After breaking a bottle of liqueur and hitting one of the guests Jake is laid out by Marshall's walking stick and left to sleep it off in the study over night. Unfortunately, the next morning Jake's body is found in the walk-in cold room, beaten around the head with a meat mallet he froze to death.

I enjoyed this until Pearl started her Columbo moment and decided that reading tea leaves would be a good method of identifying the murderer! Also I feel there was an unexplained conversation (or two) about not involving/telling the police that was never addressed or explained.

Anyway, I don't recall seeing this one as part of the tv series, maybe because of the spectacular leap of imagination that is required to identify the murderer based on the 'clues'.

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