Tapas on the Ramblas: A Russell Quant Mystery

Michael Payne is the City of Edmonton archivist and the co-author of A
Narrative History of Fort Dunvegan.

This is the third volume in a series of mysteries featuring Russell
Quant, a gay Saskatoon private detective.

The book opens with Quant being hired by a mousy young woman named
Flora Wiser. Flora is the granddaughter of the wealthy and equally gay
Charity Wiser, who likes to torment her highly dysfunctional relatives
at periodic family gatherings. When Charity Wiser becomes convinced that
someone in the family is interested in inheriting her wealth sooner
rather than later, Russell Quant is summoned to expose the scheming
family member.

Family tensions rise after Quant joins the family on a Mediterranean
cruise. In a twist on the old Agatha Christie device in which suspicion
falls on a large cast of characters (all with apparently good reasons to
hate the victim), the presumed victim is not killed, although she is
threatened. The other twist is that the cruise ship caters to a gay
clientele, and several of Charity Wiser’s relatives are neither gay
nor especially gay-friendly.

The book closes with a fresh mystery that clearly sets up the next
volume in the series.