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Murder in the Tea Leaves by Carter Fielding
When someone else is covering the cost of the trip, why would anyone ever pay for their own travel expenses? Finley Blake, a young travel writer for Traveler’s Tales, a high-end travel publication that has once again given her freelance work, used the same justification. Finley is currently sent to Sri Lanka even though her original destination was India. She makes plans to spend time with Max and asks her sister Whitt to join her.
Finley’s boyfriend Max is currently employed in Delhi. The sisters have already visited Sri Lanka once before. Finley gave Whitt the vacation as a graduation present. The sisters are in for a long journey. Including going to the Temple of the Toothshrine, where it is said that the Buddha’s tooth is kept and that whomever holds it has the power to reign. Max will arrive soon because Colombo, where the temple is located, is only a short flight from Delhi.
David, Whitt’s boyfriend, won’t be too far behind either. The parade of elephants in Pinnawala is just one of the sights that the four Musketeers will be taking in when they are all together once more (an elephant orphanage). We are exposed to a plethora of personalities residing at the same hotel as the sisters after Finley and Whitt arrive in Nuwara Eliya, in the classic Agatha Christie fashion.
This tempts them to engage in “The Murder Game,” their go-to childhood game. Its purpose is to create murder-mystery stories involving others nearby. However, reality is stranger than fantasy, and the sisters learn that there has been a murder after they visit the Nine Arch Bridge and Tea Factory. Strange things start to happen all around them as night follows day.
Cozy Mysteries are great because they are exactly that—mysteries that make you want to curl up on the couch and read. Fielding does a terrific job of combining mystery and mayhem with international travel. Finley and Whitt will be thinking about murder and a motivation one moment while eating lava cake and discussing a Tuk Tuk tour. I kept looking up the locations referenced in the article on Google and browsing the images.
Fielding excels at developing likeable people. She did so in Murder in Montauk: A Blake Sister Travel Mystery Prequel as well as Murder in the Tea Leaves: Book 2 of the Blake Sister Travel Mystery series. Characters are easy for readers to see and identify with. We are aware of Finley’s chocolate-colored, wavy hair and alligator-green, dark eyes. Her sister Whitt, who is the complete opposite, has a swimmer-straight form and elegant features.
Her eyes are a bright green, and her hair is lighter and straighter than Finley’s waves. The fact that Whitt’s boyfriend David is busy checking everyone’s glasses at the restaurant where they are dining for water stains struck me as very significant. However, I’m not sure which mystery is more intriguing—who is murdering the tour group participants or the sisters’ romantic relationships. They have somehow gotten caught up in their very own love triangles in between solving mysteries.
I give Murder in the Tea Leaves: A Blake Sister Travel Mystery Book 2 by Carter Fielding 5 out of 5 stars. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Fielding’s creation of secondary characters that are just as interesting as her main characters. Warning there is explicit language. Are there other “accidents” happening or, as the police would have you think, is there truly a killer stalking the sisters? The fact that at least one traveller had previously been charged with murder does seem a little odd.
About The Book
Whitt and Finley Blake are returning to Sri Lanka, a place they couldn’t wait to visit again. But this trip, someone is killing off people wherever the sisters go. Is it a coincidence? Is someone after them or someone the sisters know? Whitt and Finley need to find out, and quickly, before the body count gets any higher.
When Finley Blake, a young travel writer, gets a choice assignment in Sri Lanka, she snaps it up. Not only does it get her closer to Delhi, where Max, her former lover and ‘new’ boyfriend is working, but it also gives her some time with her sister, Whitt.
The sisters had holidayed in Sri Lanka before and were enchanted by the picturesque countryside, delectable food, and gracious people. But their idyllic vacation is interrupted by some strange monkey business and bodies that are hidden in the most unusual places.
Follow the Blake sisters as they trek from the elephant sanctuaries of central Sri Lanka to the tea plantations of the highlands to the game preserves of Yala, finding bodies wherever they go, in the second book of their Travel Mystery series, a tale of suspense and murder in the tea leaves.
The Review
Murder in the Tea Leaves
10 Score
Finley and Whitt Blake (two savvy, globe-trotting sisters) find themselves on the front lines of another lethal conundrum: this time on the serene island nation of Sri Lanka. I really enjoyed reading this book! This was the third Blake sisters' mystery I've read, and I look forward to reading more. Not only do Finley and Whitt help solve murders as amateur detectives, they also travel extensively while they do it. I highly recommend this book to other mystery readers.
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