After years of silence, these long-ago acquaintances urge Ellie to come see them immediately, although they are rather vague about why. Ellie discusses the letter with her eccentric housekeeper, Mrs. Malloy, who is preoccupied with her own problems: it seems husband Leonard, who left to buy stew meat 20 years ago has finally found his way back and wants to come home to his long-suffering wife. Both Mrs. Malloy and Ellie decide a visit to the village of Knells might be timely and head out the very next morning, despite Ellie’s receiving a midnight phone call warning her to stay away.

Shortly after Ellie meets Rosemary, Thora and Jane - the “Bridesmaids”- murder comes to their home, the Old Rectory, when the ill-tempered gardener apparently falls off a ladder onto his gardening shears. Heartily disliked by everyone else, the gardener is only mourned by his wife, Edna, who “does” for the ladies of the Old Rectory. Through her conversations with the Bridesmaids, Edna and the villagers of Knell, Ellie learns some of the missing pieces of her grandmother Sophia’s life. Her hostesses feel Sophia is trying to reach them from the other side to advise in a difficult decision the ladies must make about selling the Old Rectory, hence, the summons for Ellie’s presence.

To add to the confusion, Mrs. Malloy’s missing husband Leonard appears on the doorstep, demanding to be reunited with his wife. When other strange events take place - drugged cocoa, slashed car tires and whispered threats - Ellie feels there is more mischief going on than her grandmother’s ghost has caused. Which of her grandmother’s old friends is bent on vengeance? Old wounds have been reopened, and Ellie is determined to fill in the missing branches in her family tree.

Bridesmaids Revisited is a nice visit with a comfortable old friend. The first book in this series, The Thin Woman, was the best and strongest, with each successive entry getting just a tiny bit weaker, like a well-used tea bag. Dorothy Cannell has the English cozy down pat and does a good job of fleshing out the main characters, even if some of them (Mrs. Malloy, husband Leonard) are over the top.

Cannell even gently spoofs her own storyline by having Ellie read a gothic romance during her stay with all its parallels to the main story - mysterious goings-on, secret staircases, intrepid heroines. Bridesmaids Revisited resolves tidily at the very end as Ellie once again gains more relatives than she ever knew she had.

--K. W. Becker