There Is No Return (Adelaide Adams Mystery)

In Anita Blackmon's second Adelaide Adams mystery, There Is No Return, Adelaide comes to the rescue of a friend from the Hotel Richelieu, Ella Trotter, who is embroiled in mysterious goings-on involving spiritual possession at a backwoods Ozarks hotel, the Lebeau Inn. Return opens with yet another splendid declaration of the "Had I But Known" mystery tradition in the part of Adelaide: "As I pointed out, to no avail, when the body of the third disemboweled cat was discovered in my bed, had I foreseen the train of horrible events which settled over that isolated mountain inn like a miasma of death upon the afternoon of my arrival, I should have left Ella to lay her own ghosts." The isolated setting in Return (Adelaide and the other guests are trapped with a multiple murderer at the Lebeau Inn after the bridge washes out) is memorably evoked by the author, though the tone of the book is grimmer, with more chills than chuckles (at times one is even reminded of Stephen King's The Shining). Yet There Is No Return is a worthy sequel to Murder á la Richelieu and it is very pleasing to encounter the old battle-ax in all her sleuthing finery one last time.