Tour guide Emily Andrew and her comical group of aging Iowa travelers are taking a tour of Scandinavia this time around. Also along is Emily's transgender ex-husband, Jack (who's now known as Jackie). Jackie has just had her first romance novel published, and she makes sure that everyone knows it by handing out copies of her book to whoever shows an interest in it.
Along with the Iowa contingent is a group of Florida retirees. The so-called leader of this group trashes the book, which really sets Jackie's blood to boiling. When the outspoken woman is later found murdered, Jackie is the prime suspect. Good thing she has an alibi. Then another Floridian is murdered, and it looks like Emily is again going to have to deal with a killer in their midst.
It doesn't help matters any that there's been a tornado back home in Iowa, which causes havoc with all of Emily's upcoming wedding arrangements. Now, with her mother making alternate plans for the occasion, the nuptials could turn out to be a real fiasco. Oh, this is turning out to be some vacation!
The sixth installment of this delightfully humorous travel series is just as much fun as all the others have been. I feel like a part of this touring contingent of quirky Iowa octogenarians, Emily has become my close friend, and I can't wait for the dead bodies to start turning up. It will be interesting to see where Ms. Hunter decides to send all of us in her next book, since the bank that's been sponsoring all the previous tours has been blown away in the tornado.
Sure, Jackie Thum's newly published novel might not be Hemingway, but bad reviews from her fellow travelers have Emily Andrew's transgender ex-husband (Jackie was formerly Jack) steaming like a sauna. It's a dismal start to their Scandinavian tour, and group leader Emily is getting that sinking feeling in Helsinki: something fishy this way comes. When Jackie's most outspoken critic, a Floridian from a picture-perfect gated community called The Hamlets, is found dead, suspicion falls on Jackie -- who surprises everyone with an airtight alibi. But when another guest turns up dead, Emily realizes there is a killer hiding among them. Herrings, both red and pickled, abound on a Norwegian fjord cruise -- and Jackie is suddenly nowhere to be found. With her mother arranging a wedding disaster for Emily back home in Iowa, Emily must somehow salvage her nuptials from overseas while icing a killer -- before someone else meets a nasty Finnish.
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