The Murder Mystery (A Beth Haldane Mystery Book 1) by Alice Castle

Beth is a young widow with a small son. Having landed a job at Wyatts the local prestigious boys school in Dulwich she is very keen to establish herself as an archivist in the school and ultimately hope that it will pave the way for her son to get admission to this school. What she did not envisage is finding her boss murdered just hours after she started working. The archivist was unpleasant, unhelpful and a bit of a lecher. When the detectives started swarming the school, it seemed that there were many undercurrents at play - the murdered man's wife acted strangely, a receptionist at the school seemed to have been on very good terms with the archivist, the Principal wanted to keep everything under wraps and maintain the good name of the school come what may. The story was a good one. I could never figure out why just because Beth discovered the body, she should consider herself the first suspect and did everything in her power to figure this out. She met the man for the first time on the day she started work, she had nothing to gain from his murder and she was terrified that she would be arrested. It seemed a bit over the top. Beth investigating the crime and being more successful than Detective York is the detective genre at play here but her trying to show that she had nothing to do with the murder was overplayed. Sent by Bookouture for an unbiased review, courtesy of Netgalley.