Review: Murder Takes the High Road by Josh Lanyon

Title: Murder Takes the High Road

Author: Josh Lanyon

Length: 336 Pages

Category: Contemporary, Mystery/Suspense

At a Glance: I love mysteries and when they come mixed with a touch of romance and a hefty dose of humor, I am delighted. As usual it’s the characters that drive this story, and Josh Lanyon can write realistic, endearing characters like no other.

Reviewed By: Sammy

Blurb: Librarian Carter Matheson is determined to enjoy himself on a Scottish bus tour for fans of mystery author Dame Vanessa Rayburn. Sure, his ex, Trevor, will also be on the trip with his new boyfriend, leaving Carter to share a room with a stranger, but he can’t pass up a chance to meet his favorite author.

Carter’s roommate turns out to be John Knight, a figure as mysterious as any character from Vanessa’s books. His strange affect and nighttime wanderings make Carter suspicious. When a fellow traveler’s death sparks rumors of foul play, Carter is left wondering if there’s anyone on the tour he can trust.

Drawn into the intrigue, Carter searches for answers, trying to fend off his growing attraction toward John. As unexplained tragedies continue, the whole tour must face the fact that there may be a murderer in their midst—but who?

Review: Murder Takes the High Road once again proves that this author can take mysteries and imbue them with delightful tongue-in-cheek humor while maintaining the solid elements a good whodunit requires. With quirky characters, rabid fans, and a quiet librarian on the rebound, the focus of the fan tour to Scotland is perhaps the most fascinating character in the story. It’s not often a novelist turns out to be a former murderess who shrouds herself in just enough mystery, including owning her own castle located on a remote island, to make the trip to visit her estate an event all in its own.

When Carter Matheson decides to go on the trip he actually scheduled for himself and his former cheating boyfriend, Trevor, he does so knowing that it’s strictly to stick it to said boyfriend. Trevor had tried to convince (read: shame) Carter into not going since he was taking his new flame, Vance, the very man he cheated with, which ended his and Carter’s three year relationship. Awkward doesn’t begin to describe the trip as Vance’s hostilities toward Carter take a rather dangerous tone while Trevor is angrily trying to make Carter leave the tour. But it’s the late arrival of a roommate for Carter, John Knight, that really sets Carter on edge—and not for necessarily negative reasons. John is kind, mysterious and appealing. Carter finds himself attracted and John is willing to act on that attraction.

However, suddenly tour participants turn up dead or missing, Carter’s and John’s rooms are ransacked, Carter is thrown into harm’s way, not once but twice, and they haven’t even made it to the castle yet. Something is not quite right on this tour, and Carter is swept up in some amateur sleuthing that may take a deadly turn before the mystery is solved.

I love mysteries and when they come mixed with a touch of romance and a hefty dose of humor, I am delighted. As usual it’s the characters that drive this story, and Josh Lanyon can write realistic, endearing characters like no other. Carter and John have fun on this tour—and that is the key to why they are so entertaining to read. There is no real heavy angst, although there is some personal evaluating going on by Carter and some revelations that both sober him and set him free when it comes to his reactions to Trevor, his ex. John is so easy-going and able to settle Carter when he is stressed and defuse the tension when things just don’t feel right on the tour. Add to these men the older cast of adoring fans, and there is a genuine feel to this story that earmarks it as a Lanyon novel. And while all these folks were plenty to keep me riveted, I must admit it was the person whom the tour revolves around that I found most fascinating.

Making Vanessa Rayburn a teenage murderer and then giving her an incredibly prolific and lucrative career, post-prison, was a bit of a genius premise for a novel. Placing her home on a remote, privately owned island that only has access twice a year for the tour’s coming and going only heightened that reminiscent “and then there were none” atmosphere Agatha Christie created in her novel of the same. But that is the only comparison one can make to Dame Christie, for author Josh Lanyon has her own voice and it shines in each of her novels. Plus, we got the extra bonus of some lush prose describing various parts of Scotland as the group toured them, and these passages really allowed for the reader to feel fully immersed in the setting and action of the novel.

Murder Takes the High Road ranks right up there with another duo I love of Lanyon’s, Holmes & Moriarity. I found Carter and John incredibly endearing and well suited to each other. Here’s hoping that there are a few more novels featuring this duo in the future.

You can buy Murder Takes the High Road here:
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