Three scenic road trips through Scotland. That was the plan. What they got instead was three murder investigations in some of Scotland's most beautiful places. Typical.
Joana and Brian are travel photographers by trade, amateur detectives by accident, and the sort of friends who have somehow managed not to kill each other despite years of bickering.
They call themselves the Snowfellow sleuths, mostly because it sounds better than "two people arguing in a pink car". They rarely agree on anything, although they are firmly on the same side when it matters.
Joana's idea of a perfect Highland road trip involves driving her little pink car through the Highlands, camera at the ready, with just enough mist to make everything look mysterious for her editor. She only ever sets out to photograph the scenery, but somehow manages to stumble over bodies with alarming regularity.
Brian is not amused.
This box set contains Books 1-3 of The Highland Mysteries:
Deadly Cairns
Out in the Highlands with their cameras, Joana and Brian stumble across the bodies of fellow photographers, each one left beside a cairn topped with a jaunty thumbs-up. Their hunt for answers drags them from Edinburgh to Skye, following a trail of clues through the wild landscape and hoping to catch the killer before someone else gets commemorated in stone.
Amber Warning
All Joana and Brian wanted was a peaceful photography workshop amid the wild beauty of Lewis and Harris. Instead, someone from their travel group ends up dead, and an Atlantic storm leaves them stranded on the island with a murderer and no way off. Brian attempts to keep the peace with his usual blend of charming chaos and catastrophic DIY. Joana, meanwhile, is undeterred by either gale or homicide and determined to solve the case before the ferries resume and the murderer makes a dash for the mainland.
Lethal Laybys
Joana and Brian set off along the NC500 for a camping adventure, which is all fun and midges until they find a dead camper near Wick. Soon they are swept up in the chaos of the route: dog shows, Highland games and a campervan rally full of every eccentric north of Inverness. Joana is off chasing murderers. Brian would prefer to let his drone do the legwork, but when it captures something he really should not have seen, the body count starts to rise.
The Highland Mysteries are proper whodunits with fast, page-turning plots and the kind of dry British humour that can bite. And, as ever, Scotland steals the show.
Perfect for fans of Midsomer Murders and Agatha Raisin.
