Posted to Death: A Simon Kirby-Jones Mystery by Dean James

                      Recently my mom and I were discussing different book series’ that suddenly ended.  There was not any notice or even a hint that the series’ were not going to carry on to further books.  I wondered if maybe there had been new books and we just missed them.  If we had not, I wanted to know if there was any information out there to explain the abrupt endings.  The mysteries about Simon Kirby-Jones were one of the series’ I investigated.  In my research, I was only able to find the four books I had already read and I did not find a reason as to why the series ended.  Disappointed, as I really enjoyed the Simon Kirby-Jones books, I decided to read them again.  There is nothing wrong with enjoying the ones that do exist, beginning with Posted to Death. 

                Simon Kirby-Jones is an American who has recently moved to a small English village.  New to the area, Simon does not know many people and the villagers do not know much about him.  They know Simon writes scholarly historical works and that he is living in the cottage of former resident Tristan Lovelace.  What the villagers do not know is that Simon is gay.  As Simon is open about his sexual orientation, it does not take long for people to find out.  This information does not make a difference as to how anyone views Simon.  They all accept him for who he is and are interested in getting to know the new resident.  There is, however, one secret Simon does have that may make him not so welcome anymore.

                There are actually two secrets Simon is keeping.  One is harmless and he holds it for business reasons.  Simon does not only write scholarly works.  He is also the author of a romance series and a mystery series.  Both are written under names other than his own, women’s names, so they will sell better.  He does not want this secret out as one never knows how it could affect his book sales if people find out they were written by a man instead of a woman.

                Then there is the big secret.  I do mean big.  Simon is a vampire.  He is not a vampire in the traditional sense, as a pill as been developed to do away with many of the known side effects.  There is not a thirst for blood.  He is able to go out in the daylight as long as he covers up.  Simon still has some sensitivity to sun so precautions must be taken, but otherwise he is okay.  Garlic, however, will still kill him.  He must stay away from that.  All in all Simon can live a normal life.  He just needs to be sure to take his pills every day.  Despite Simon’s ability to live normally, the villagers probably would not take it well when told a vampire lives amongst them.  Keeping Simon’s vampire status a secret is probably a good idea.

                Just because Simon lives a fairly normal life, it does not mean things are that way in the village.  Only a few days after Simon’s arrival, Abigail Winterton, local shop owner and post handler, is found dead.  As Simon is new to the village, he is one of the few, if not the only, people who is not a suspect in her murder.  The night before her death, Ms. Winterton stated she was going to release a script for a play she had written.  This might not sound very threatening, but Ms. Winterton made sure everyone knew the deep secrets of those in the village were going to be revealed in the play.  When the body is found, the script is missing, turning everyone into a suspect.

Curious as to what the truth behind Ms. Winterton’s death is, Simon cannot resist getting involved in the case.  It also helps that he is quite attracted to the lead investigator, Robin Chase.  The more information Simon uncovers, the more time he gets to spend with the man.  That, however, is a side advantage.  Simon really does want to know who killed Ms. Winterton and why.  He snoops around and asks questions, trying to figure out who had the best motive.  Then the missing script is discovered among Simon’s mail.  When Simon reads it, he finds out so much more about his new neighbors, and a lot of possible reasons Ms. Winterton may have been killed.      

                This book is not long and I zipped right through it. Well, it helps that all I wanted to do was keep reading so that I could see what happened next. That tends to make a book move quickly. I did say I had read this before, but that was several years ago. Things were familiar to me, and I remembered details along the way, but I did not remember everything. So in a way the mystery was new to me once again. Not that it mattered. Even if I had remembered everything about the mystery, the book is so much fun I would have kept reading so quickly anyways.