Muslim Architecture Book

I quite like murder mysteries and especially the older ones (think: Chandler, Hammett, Sayers, Crispin) but I was surprised to find I had never heard of this prodigious duo. Two professional women (from memory one a lawyer, the other an accountant?) adopted a pseudonym comprising elements of both their names so that they could write with anonymity without jeapodising their careers and then wrote several dozen mystery novels set in the world of high finance and trade.

But enough background, the book itself: I found it a charming whimsical read that had a lot of warmth in the casual ways they analysed the underlying personalities - the protagonist is a pleasure to accompany throughout the book. If I had to pick a failing, I would say there is a significantly larger body of work in the personalities that the underlying events. Once a character is murdered, there was a brief description of how the body was found and then this aspect wasn't covered or investigated by anyone again. It is true the greater mystery was the motive behind the murder (a significant fraud that people are trying to detect and unravel) but right up until the last 15% of the book basically nothing had been discovered or resolved. I was nervous about it having a reasonable resolution - and I was not let down. Some key characters cover the entire thing suitably and briefly, and in order that the reader didn't feel cheated, some clever hints that were hidden in the first 85% are dusted off to show that they were sort-of playing fair all along. It's well written but still a bit of cheat. I haven't read any of their other books but if this comes up again I suspect I have the authors' measure.

Anyway, as it stood it was a brief little mystery novel set in the financial services industry with well drawn characterisation and clever observations on society. Well worth a punt.