Fanny Zindel is frequently traveling these days. Just returned from England, she is invited to be a replacement delegate for the Clifford’s Tower Memorial Service in York, England. Of course, she really doesn’t mind, since this loving Jewish grandmother welcomes every chance to spend time with Susan, who is attending an equestrian school in that area. Rest can wait, she thinks, for the afterlife.

Carrying her “everything” bag, she embarks on a trip that turns into as mysterious as her last Israeli tour, resulting in a hair-raising, whirlwind spy plot involving Mossad, Israel’s secret service agency. This journey will be no different!

How is it that Susan’s school, fallen on hard times, is able to flourish these days? More importantly to Fanny, how is it that the Headmistress seems to be set against Susan? “…Bubbe…It’s hopeless!” Not by a far shot is what the reader will decide, who knows by this point in the novel that Fanny Zindel will ferret out the roots of these mysteries. In the process, however, three murders occur that will daunt even the most analytical reader’s powers to predict the outcome of Fanny’s inquiries.

Stevens and Moore have created a warm, funny and intelligent elderly grandmother-sleuth who is sheer delight! “Fair is foul and foul is fair,” indeed as the mystery proceeds. Fanny is provocative yet protective, physically limited but forging ahead with amazing reserves of strength, honestly frank with deeply moving compassion, and intuitively intelligent about her own and others’ connection to clues. A renewed romance with Nathan adds to the warmth radiating throughout this engaging novel that I was sorry ended.

I would love to read more from these authors, who have preserved the art of the unpredictable mystery and yet have not lost the author-reader connection because there is so much of our daily lives and interactions described in a delicious manner!

Enjoy this grand read!