Death, she writes. Contemporary Agatha Christie reincarnate Andrea Carter, that is. It’s kismet that these two famed mystery authors share identical initials.

In 2022’s THE BODY FALLS, Benedicta “Ben” O’Keeffe had returned from a six-month stint at a Florida law firm to find that Stuart Chambers had insinuated himself into her parents’ Dublin home. He has entrenched himself in their lives like a leech; they’re totally dependent on him. Until Ben mentions that her beau is a Garda Síochána, or police officer. Tom Molloy is Glendara’s top cop. Chambers vanishes for a few days, and Ben learns he duped her parents into signing a will that bequeaths their home to him, an incentive for their demise.

"Death, she writes. Contemporary Agatha Christie reincarnate Andrea Carter, that is. It’s kismet that these two famed mystery authors share identical initials.... A dozen individuals with motive and means populate the pages."

Ben invites her folks to stay in County Donegal, where her mom’s favorite author, Gavin Featherstone, will speak at Phyllis Kettle’s Glenfest, a Glendara literary festival. Many attend the event, if only to see the bestselling author who has become a hermit in a manor house maintained by a suspicious young man named Robbie Cahill. While walking along Ireland’s craggy coast, Ben spies Cahill unceremoniously ousting someone through the back gate. The incident eerily reminds her of Chambers. Featherstone is “a complete recluse. Never leaves the house. Hasn’t done an event in ten years.”

Glenfest is a success, and even Featherstone’s estranged family attends. But the enclosed venue becomes too warm. The author sips from a glass that had been placed within reach, while Róisín Henderson interviews him. His arrogance fades as he touches his chest and gulps more water. And collapses.

The next day, Ben learns that she has in a safe Featherstone’s will prepared by her predecessor --- and that the author had drawn up another “form” will leaving everything to Cahill. Molloy tells Ben, “It does look as if it wasn’t a natural death.” Ben is befuddled. Two wills leaving everything to different people: “No one can profit from a death they have caused.”

A host of characters baffle Ben: Featherstone’s wife, whom he had never divorced, greedy interlopers trying surreptitiously to inherit property, and even Glendara residents who sweep mysterious events under the rug. A dozen individuals with motive and means populate the pages.

The many characters with motive to commit murder in Carter’s novels may be compared to the 1978 film version of Death on the Nile, in which Hercule Poirot visualizes each of nine voyagers on a Nile yacht committing the murder --- by each character doing the deed. In DEATH WRITES, Carter portrays each character with motive as though she has envisaged the scenario. Classic Christie!

As this review is being published, Bookreporter’s Dean Murphy, an inveterate traveler, is on a yacht sailing along Egypt’s Nile River, perhaps trying to fathom whodunit.