I received this book for free from in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Secret at Skull House
by
Josh Lanyon
mystery, amateur sleuth, cozy mystery in a Kindle edition that was published by JustJoshin Publishing Inc. on April 28, 2020 and has 274 pages.
Explore it on Goodreads or Amazon
Other books by this author which I have reviewed include Fatal Shadows, Death of a Pirate King, A Dangerous Thing, The Hell You Say, Dark Tide, Somebody Killed His Editor, Fair Play, Fair Chance, "So This is Christmas", Murder at Pirate's Cove, Footsteps in the Dark, Mystery at the Masquerade, The Dark Farewell, “A Funny Thing Happened . . .”, Murder Takes the High Road, Fair Game, Corpse at Captain's Seat, Scandal at the Salty Dog, Body at Buccaneer's Bay, Lament at Loon Landing, Death at the Deep Dive
Second in the Secrets and Scrabble cozy mystery series with an amateur sleuth as the hero, and revolving around a new-come mystery bookshop owner, Ellery Page. It’s June in Pirate’s Cove on Buck Island in Rhode Island and tourist season has begun.
My Take
There’s gotta be a bad karma sign over Ellery Page. He’s accused of murder. Again! We learn it all through Lanyon’s use of third person protagonist point-of-view from Ellery’s perspective.
Pirate Cove does sound like a great tourist destination with its past histories and for bird watchers.
It’s a weird kind of dance between Ellery and Jack. Neither of them wants to be interested in anyone, and they’re moving forward on a friends basis. It does help that Jack knows quite a bit about construction, and they’re working hard to fix up Aunt Eudora’s house, although Ellery’s been avoiding Aunt Eudora’s library.
Relationship-wise though, Ellery can’t help jumping the gun.
I do love that Ellery realizes what he learned not to want in a relationship. I figure if you can learn from a mistake, you’re ahead.
English can be so much fun. I enjoy saying adulting and revel in its inferences, lol.
It cracks me up that Ellery’s play is being played as a comedy with the good guy portrayed as a bad guy — and everybody loves it. Poor Ellery . . . he should go with the flow, lol.
Oops! That cat’s out of the bag when smarmy boy tells everyone that Ellery, ahem, a.k.a. Elliot Parker, starred in that series of Happy Halloween! You’re Dead movies — in which Abbot wrote the part of Noah Street for Ellery. It is so cute how embarrassed Ellery is about ’em. And so realistic!
It was quite satisfying to learn more about Abbott, not so satisfying as to how it would impact Ellery,
More oh-oh is Nora who is determined to set up their own sleuthing group — the Silver Sleuths Book Club. It’s one way to bring in more customers to the book store, lol. That’ll teach Jack! Then there’re the secrets beneath the town!
Interesting. There’s a cold case with friends of each side claiming something different. No surprise there. It’s the truth that is the surprise. Typical witnesses. No one saw anything. No one was there — even though the whole village knew the kids who ran in the pack.
As usual, it’s a fun and cozy mystery that’s easy to read.
The Story
Ellery is fitting in, especially with Nora helping him — her knowledge of mysteries and the history of Pirate’s Cove is a treasure!
Then a self-absorbed ex-boyfriend shows up, wanting attention, and poking at Ellery. Even after he’s murdered, he’s still causing Ellery problems with a twenty-year-old cold case thrown in.
The Characters
It’s been four months since Ellery Page inherited his great-great-great-aunt’s bookshop, the Crow’s Nest. In his “free” time, he does screenwriting. Eudora is the aunt with the sinking bookshop and Captain’s Seat, the moldering 18th century mansion built by his ancestor Captain Horatio Page. Watson is the black spaniel-mix Ellery rescued in Murder at Pirate’s Cove, 1. Ellery’s mother teaches drama to high schoolers; his dad is an acting coach.
Pirate’s Cove is . . .
. . . a former pirate sanctuary on Buck Island where Ellery has his shop. The retired Nora Sweeney loves to work at the Crow’s Nest; she’s also been the president of the Pirate’s Cove Historical Society. Nan Sweeney, Nora’s niece, owns the charming Seacrest Inn and is the assistant mayor.
Jack Carson is the police chief whose father had owned his own construction company. Officer Martin and Detective George Lansing, Mariah Robertson’s nephew who’s a jerk, are on the police force.
Libbey/Libby Tulley is Tom Tulley‘s daughter, and he owns the Salty Dog, a popular tavern. Reg is one of the bartenders. Felix Jones is Libby’s boyfriend. His father is Cyrus Jones, the jovial mayor; Philippa is Felix’s mom and Cyrus’ second wife. Sue Lewis is the editor of the Scuttlebutt Weekly who has a hate on for Jack and constantly vilifies Ellery in her local paper.
Hermione Nelson could be a great customer of the Crow’s Nest, if she’d just stop returning so many books. Jane Smith likes the used paperbacks — who doesn’t! The absentminded Mrs Ferris appears to like true crime. The irritating Stanley Starling patronizes the bookshop and is part of the Scrabble group.
Janet Maples, Trevor’s ex-wife, is getting out of the hospital after events in Murder at Pirate’s Cove, and owns Old Salt Stationery. Ernest Burke has a construction company and will be doing renovations at Skull House. Sandy Morita runs the art gallery on the other side of the Crow’s Nest. Sandy’s daughter is Watson’s puppysitter. Greta Handel runs a gourmet grocery store. Finn’s appears to be a fishmonger’s.
The Scalawags are a local amateur theater guild started in 1898 and led by Dylan Carter, its theater director, who owns the Toy Chest, next door to Ellery’s shop and Ellery’s best friend in Pirate’s Cove. This season, they’re putting on Murder Mansion, an adaptation of one of Ellery’s rejected screenplay, Murder Under the Eaves. Libby plays Lily Montaigne, Cyrus plays Inspector Wetherell, and Felix plays Marc Morales.
The Monday Night Scrabblers is another group Ellery has joined — a no-brainer with that passion he has for Scrabble.
Skull House, a property of cultural and historical interest built by John Mansfield (the original cruel and ruthless pirate of Pirate’s Cove) in 1608, is finally being put on the market by the Tideworths. Ann Rathbone, a local girl, was kidnapped by Mansfield.
The peculiar, rich, and attention-seeking Brandon Abbott is an old boyfriend of Ellery’s — they’d been roommates at the New York University Tisch School of the Arts. He’s also a successful horror novelist who bases his fiction on real-life crimes into which he adds the supernatural.
Twenty years ago . . .
. . . Steve Robertson had been a big football star and planned to go into the family business, Robertson’s Garage. Mariah Robertson is Steve’s “blind” mother. Rebecca Witherspoon, a descendant of Ann Rathbone who had a lot of interests but was not part of the “in” crowd, disappeared. Sandy, Janet, and Nan are some of the teens mentioned.
Ronny is Ellery’s agent. Spain of Narragansett is an elegant Spanish Mediterranean restaurant on the mainland. Mr Landry is Aunt Eudora’s lawyer. Mr Honeycutt is Brandon’s lawyer.
The Pirate Eight were the first houses built on Buck Island.
The Cover and Title
The cover has an eerie, smoky gradient background from dark purple in the upper left to lilac in the lower right. At the very top is the author’s name in a pale yellow. Immediately below it is the title in white with black shadows. Immediately below that is that graphic of a hard-edged skull-and-crossbones in a pale yellow with black shadows and white highlights. At the very bottom is a vintage paper scroll with the series info in a dark brown.
The title tells you true, there is a Secret at Skull House.
