A Devious Lot

Antiques & Collectibles Mysteries, Book 5

By: Ellery Adams, Parker Riggs

Narrated by: Andi Arndt

Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins

Publisher's summary

Molly Appleby has promised her new husband that their honeymoon will be trouble-free - specifically, no sleuthing. Unfortunately, trouble seems to follow Molly wherever she goes, even to England.

After a glorious week in London, the newlyweds have escaped the city to visit Molly's great-aunt in the quaint English village of Marlow Crossing. The setting is idyllic, as beautiful and serene as Molly could hope for, but, as the senior staff writer for Collector's Weekly knows, appearances can be deceiving. And when a local woman turns up poisoned to death, Molly's convinced there's more to the story than meets the eye.

Putting her honeymoon on hold, Molly agrees to help local inspector Devon Boyle with the case, especially since the sleepy village presents such a small number of suspects. But when two of them go missing and the tragic death of another woman comes to light, Molly realizes she's up against a much more sinister criminal than she thought. Untangling a web of lies and deceit as she searches for a motive and a murderer won't be easy, but Molly's determined to put all of her detective skills to use to catch a killer before her trip and her life are brought to a sudden end.

©2016 Jennifer Stanley and Parker Riggs (P)2016 Tantor

Great story, but narrator was monotone

I enjoyed the mystery. However the narrator was monotone and her different voices for the characters were not good.

Good story but…

The story is good but after a while Molly begins to grate on my last nerve by how incredibly stupid she can be. If she could show a little more common sense everyone would benefit.

Ugghhh Molly still TSTL

Just when you think Molly is maturing, she has those old TSTL moments, actively ignores advice from EVERYONE to not put herself in danger and stupidly goes right on in, then one minute late “oh no, maybe I should have listened” 🙄🙄🙄🙄 I swear Ms. Adams wants us to hate Molly.

The Depths and Wages of Love and Greed

Two timelines . . . late 1800s and current day . . . and both intrigued me to no end . . . Molly and Matt are married and on their honeymoon in England . . . but as we all know, death and murder seem to follow her wherever she goes . . . and this time it has followed her across the big pond . . . visiting her great aunt Tessa, who has recently taken a fall, and was unable to make it to their wedding, they are enjoying a quiet and restful time in the countryside in the Cotswalds . . . when one of Aunt Tessa's neighbors turns up dead, poisoned by a plant growing in her Tessa's garden . . . perplexed by the murder, Molly is enlisted by the local police to assist in interviewing the locals about their possible knowledge of the crime and their association with the victim . . . I loved the history of the "eye miniature" . . . something I had never heard of before . . . so much so I had to look them up, also known as "lovers eyes", they date back to the late 1700s when the Prince of Wales secretly sent one to widow, Maria Fitzherbert. This series is one of my favorite of Ellery Adams', and I'm sad that this is the last one. Its been an absolutely wonderful ride, along with Molly from the first book to the last . . . I highly recommend the book and series!

Maddeningly bad at British

The authors fell down on the job here. They have no ear for British names including place names. A little basic googling would have helped. Otherwise consistent with the rest of the series.

Heroine disregards others

I've been listening to this series end to end and have to agree that while 90% of the story is good, very good, MH has moments of brazen self entitlement. No respect for boundaries, other people's property, shes judgemental and shows total disregard for authority or the feelings of the people who love her. Maybe that's a characteristic of reporters.

The historical part threw me at first

I have read some of the other Molly Appleby books and was curious about A Devious Lot because it is Molly on her honeymoon in England.
The story is an interesting one. The historical story that is woven in is interesting but it confused me several times when the audio switched over to that part.
I liked the narrator and the story.

Another gripping tale from my favorite cozy author

I am always amazed at the depth of Ellery's stories. He develops great characters, twisting plots, weaves in lots of background information but never so much that you feel you have been in history class. He knits it all together in tales I can not put down... always with enough pace to keep me interested but not so much that it all goes by in a blurr...truly a gift. Enjoy!!!

love her books

stayed up just to finish it and to hear the end of the historical short story

A fun historical cozy!

The highlight of this series is that each mystery ties back to a historical story which occurred long ago. That link of an old antique object from the 1900's having its own story woven into the main mystery is really enjoyable. It's what makes this series special.

I read a lot of cozies & by comparison this book has really enjoyable writing & narrating, but the plot has a lot of implausible characteristics. To think that the police chief of a town in England would take a civilian like Molly at her word that she's "good at solving crimes" and bringing her on board without hesitation is... Not likely. Molly stays in England after her honeymoon ends in order to help the police (at his request) and it's really not realistic. A better choice would be that the murder occurs during the honeymoon & Molly investigates on her own etc. I also missed the mother/daughter duo plot & there isn't nearly enough of the two of them together in this book. The Clara/Molly investigating chapters are what have made all the books in this series good. So, that lacked here. I also hated hearing Molly while about how much she missed Matt during the story. We get it! She kind of annoyed me this time..

Overall this isn't my favorite of installments in this series, but I did enjoy it because the narration is soothing & enjoyable and the story itself has a lot of depth. I look forward to see what happens next!