Joining her college classmates on their forty-year reunion trip, Laura just expects a relaxing ten days of exploring sunny Tuscany. The last-minute addition of Professor Gilbert casts a brief shadow, for some of the ladies recall his then philandering ways. But nobody expects the worst to happen.
REUNION WITH DEATH is a great concept and the lively nature of the group contrasts well with the apparent respectability of the individuals. They're all wives or divorcees, on third careers or CEOs by this time. Who would hold a grudge for all these years? Laura studied art history and she's eager to visit the monastery and Medici villas on the schedule ahead of the historic walled city of Florence, with its Renaissance artworks. Among sumptuous surroundings, hazelnut gelatos and the gossip, frankly I didn't care if there was ever a mystery to solve. But yes, the unfortunate professor is discovered lying dead on the stone path by Laura, who reports the body while wondering if someone had taken offence from his silver tongue. Obviously the man slipped and fell... an unfortunate accident?
Between the mature lady who whoops it up with twin bartenders, declaring that what happens in Italy stays in Italy, and the former student who states that she saw through the professor back in the day, and anyone who turned him down got undercutting, dismissive remarks in class, there's plenty to hold our attention. Lemon trees, olive bushes and medieval churches adorn the surroundings, with hair-raising mountain roads, Carrara marble mines and good food and wine aplenty. An autopsy reveals that Laura and her room-mate Cynthia were correct to wonder if the professor had been killed, and their nosiness takes control as they can't help trying to figure out who had the best motive.
I thought Laura came across as too coy about which government body she worked for and what she did. She didn't want to discuss it with her former classmates, but the narrator is usually honest with the readers. If you're looking for an itinerary for an Italian tour, you couldn't do better than Sheila Connolly's book, based on an actual class reunion trip that she enjoyed. REUNION WITH DEATH is a fascinating travelogue and the well-plotted murder mystery is the gelato on top of the banquet.
New from New York Times bestselling author Sheila Connolly! Laura Shumway couldn't say why she'd agreed to go on the class reunion trip to Italy. Maybe it was to take stock of her life, or maybe it was just to catch up with old friends, take in the sights, and relax in the beautiful Tuscan countryside. Either way, she knew she'd discover a lot on the trip, about both herself and her former classmates. What she didn't expect to discover was the dead body of esteemed professor Anthony Gilbert. Gilbert had had a long and illustrious career at the college. Now retired to Italy, he appeared as a surprise guest speaker at the women's vacation villa, still disarmingly handsome, still charming, but not nearly so eminent in the eyes of Laura's classmates. As a young professor all those years ago, Gilbert used his position and looks to seduce and then cast aside many of his young and impressionable students, and at least some of the women on this trip had been hurt by his false promises of love. The kind of hurt that runs deep and may have given any number of them a motive for murder. Before the polizia or carabiniere get involved, Laura and a few trusted classmates set out among the vineyards and hills of the Italian Riviera to solve the murder on their own. With the help of some influential locals and good old- fashioned detective work, they're soon led to the conclusion that one of their classmates might be a killer-and what started as a trip to see how far they'd all come may turn into a stark lesson about just how far one of them would go.
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