Lois Meade’s daughter’s boyfriend Rob is beaten (off scene) and left for dead in a ditch.  When he later dies of his injuries, it’s a murder case - or is it manslaughter?  For the dead man and those who love him, surely this is immaterial.  Lois has worked before with the investigating officer, Detective Chief Inspector Hunter Cowgill.  Although Lois is happily married, Cowgill nurses a passion for her; perhaps that’s why he tolerates her interference.  Rob’s death, so close to home, spurs Lois on to discover the killer(s), with or without Cowgill’s help.

A nearby encampment of gypsies on their way to a horse fair provide some local bigots with ready-made scapegoats, if not the actual killer.  Tensions rise as members of a teenaged gang with a mysterious ringleader cause problems for both villagers and gypsies.  A large assortment of characters add their own complications to the story, allowing the reader to speculate freely on who did what and why.

The underlying themes are thought-provoking.  Bigotry is not merely a matter of skin color or a language barrier, but also of culture, and it can work both ways.  In any population there will be good people and bad, and almost any two cultures will clash unless all concerned work hard at tolerance.  Is any level of violence acceptable in daily life?  Do people deserve a violent response if they do not adhere to the social mores of the culture in which they live?  Readers who, like me, have zero tolerance for either bigotry or violence may find the book disturbing.

Tragedy at Two runs just under 300 pages.  It is broken into 61 chapters, which are further divided into sections.  I found this choppy narrative difficult to follow, though readers who are more comfortable with sound bites may take it in stride.  The very large cast of characters is also confusing.  Readers who have followed the series since the beginning no doubt are able to keep them all straight.

This is not the kind of mystery that allows the reader - or, for that matter, the police or the amateur sleuth - to add up clues and reach the correct solution.  Tragedy at Two is less a classical mystery than a slice of life, or rather, 61 slices of life.  Although in the end we do learn who killed Rob, it is neither induction nor deduction that gets us there.  However, I have no doubt that Lois and her circle of family and friends have an eager following among those who like something a bit more meaty than a mere soap opera.  

--Nancy MacIntyre