ARC Review: Death and the Viking's Daughter by Loretta Ross

Death and the Viking's Daughter
Author: Loretta Ross
Series: An Auction Block Mystery (Book 4)
Publication: Midnight Ink (February 8, 2018)

Description: Next on Wren and Death's Appraisal List:
Item #1: An Old Family Feud.
Item #2: A Missing Woman.
Item #3: A Body in the Rosebushes of their Dream House

Auctioneer Wren Morgan and her private eye fiancé Death (pronounced "Deeth") Bogart are ready to meet each other's parents and settle down together. But their sleuthing days are far from over. While Death and Wren are helping prepare auction items at an old supper club, a Viking reenactor nearly dies at the historical settlement next door. The cause? Seeing the ghost of his daughter, who went missing twenty years ago.

As Wren looks into what happened to the Viking's daughter, Death is hired to investigate the theft of historical items that have high sentimental value. When their respective investigations turn out to be connected, the couple gets caught in a deadly conflict.

My Thoughts: This is the fourth in the Auction Block series but I haven't read any of the others. While I have some questions that weren't answered in this one, it does stand alone quite well.

Death Bogart is a private investigator. This was not his first choice of career but a roadside bomb when he was a Marine in Afghanistan changed his career path and left him with severely diminished lung capacity. Wren Morgan is an auctioneer with they Keystone family.

Death's latest case has him trying to discover who forged a not-very-valuable painting and steel it from the museum where it has lived for many years. Meanwhile, Wren is working on organizing items for an auction at a long-defunct supper club. The supper club happens to be next door to land owned by Viking reenactors. One of the reenactors had his 17-year-old daughter disappear without a trace in 1973 but thinks he saw her, or her ghost, at the supper club.

Wren and Death have just become engaged and are house hunting. Wren finds a possibility that would work for them and which has, as its claim to fame, a body buried in the rose garden. The body had been found in the woods in the 1980s and had never been identified or claimed.

Somehow, these three threads - the missing art, the missing daughter, and the unidentified body - come together into one satisfying mystery. I liked Death and his relationship with his brother Randy. I liked Wren and her relationship with her parents. I thought the mystery was well-done and interesting.

Fans of cozies will enjoy this book and this series.

Favorite Quote:

Death had never intended to become a private investigator. When he'd joined the Marines, he's been choosing a career. If that fell through, for some reason, his next choice would have been to either follow his father's footsteps into a career in law enforcement or follow his grandfather and brother into the fire services.

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.