Case of the Missing Morris Dancer, The

Anyone who enjoys classic British cozies will adore The Case of the Missing Morris Dancer. Cathy Ace's second novel featuring the Women of WISE Enquiries Agency is a refreshing departure from standard mystery fare.

One thing that makes these novels special are the central characters, the women who run WISE Enquiries. Despite differences in background and talent, they are close friends who work well together. Cathy Ace does a remarkable job making them three dimensional and believable, from the heavily pregnant Carol (the Welsh part of WISE) to the outspoken and somewhat clumsy Annie (the English part of WISE).

Another departure from the norm is that their case is not a murder, but a missing persons case, more in line with what actual private detectives face. Mavis (the Scotch part of WISE), the erstwhile leader of the group repeatedly explains that they are real detectives who follow the rules, rather than the gumshoes of the novels Annie likes to read.

The upcoming nuptials of the 18th Duke of Chellingworth is a time for celebration in Anwen-by-Wye, and tradition plays an important role. Chief amongst these is the procession of the Anwen Morris Dancers. Days before the wedding, however, one of the Morris men and the artefacts essential to the dance go missing. The Dowager Duchess Althea asks Mavis and the other women of WISE to look into the disappearance, and find a way to save the wedding.

The Case of the Missing Morris Dancer is a clever and entertaining mystery that any lover of cozies or British mysteries will adore. After reading The Case of the Dotty Dowager , I had high hopes for the series, and I am pleased to note that Cathy Ace has more than fulfilled my expectations.

5/5

The Case of the Missing Morris Dancer is available for preorder and will be released February 1, 2016.

I received a copy of The Case of the Missing Morris Dancer from the publisher and Netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review.

For my review of The Case of the Dotty Dowager visit http://muttcafe.com/2015/03/meet-the-wise-women-in-a-terrific-new-mystery/
--Crittermom

Another great mystery for the Women of WISE Enquiries

http://muttcafe.com/2016/1/the-case-of-the-missing-morris-dancer/

1/18/16

The Case of the Missing Morris Dancer: The WISE Enquiries Agency Mysteries By Cathy Ace Severn House February 2016

Review by Cynthia Chow

The eighteenth Duke of Chellingworth is getting married, and the entire village of Anwen-by-Wye is eager to celebrate the wedding of Henry Devereaux Twyst to Stephanie Timbers. While everyone seems to have an opinion on which tradition should be honored during the ceremony of the first sitting duke in one hundred years, the one that concerns the Dowager Duchess are the Morris Dancers. That is why Henry's mother Althea enlists the ladies of the WISE Enquires Agency to locate Aubrey Morris, the appropriately named and very missing Morris Dancer hired to lead the newlyweds from the church to Chellingworth Hall. Since the Twysts are allowing the Agency to work out of and one to live on their property, the WISE agents feel obligated to make this Case their priority.

The Welsh, Irish, Scottish, and English ladies all utilize their individual particular skill sets to discover whether the young dancing musician left on his own or disappeared because of more nefarious means. While they focus on searching for the Morris Dancer and his symbolic accessories, the Agency also accepts other assignments that include the Case of the Missing Sleeve and the trending Case of the Crushed Cyclist Con.

The ladies of this English Village mystery series will delight readers with their warm humor, cleverness, and unique detecting skills. The very pregnant Carol Hill fires up her tablet and computer to search records online, working-class Annie wields her talent for gossip, veteran army nurse Mavis MacDonald fearlessly interrogates, and posh Christine Wilson-Smythe smooths the way with her social connections. What the author excels at is also allowing the personal lives of her characters to continue outside of the investigation, and inserting them seamlessly into the novel. All of the women are affected by the relationships between parents and their children, all reflected in distinctly unique manners. Not to be overlooked are the many moments of humor that occur with the women's interactions with one another. Mavis pointedly remarks how fictional detectives would most likely find themselves arrested or at the minimum lose their licenses, while as an honorary WISE agent Althea demonstrates her love of Monty Python. This may only be the second outing for the WISE Enquires Agency, but their trust in one another and considerable competence ensure for many future clients and successful cases.

A converted barn on the Chillingworth Estate serves as the new office for the WISE Enquiries Agency. (This is book 2 in the series. In book one, the women solved their first case and decided to move from London to Wales for their own various reasons, but also so that they could share this office.) The four women are very different and their various backgrounds are what make them work so well together and prove so useful at solving mysteries.

In less than a week the Dowager Duchess Althea's son is getting married and of course it is essential to the newly married couple's fertility that the Morris Dancer's lead the married couple in the procession from the Church back to Chellingworth Hall. Tradition is Everything in a Welsh Wedding. So everyone is in an uproar when Aubrey Morris, the leader of the Morris dancers, is missing at the rehearsal. Of course, Althea calls in the WISE agents.

This is a very cozy mystery. But sometimes I want something on the light side. It's very well written and keeps the reader hooked. It has lovely characters with lovely values, except when they put too much emphasis on tradition! But then you get to feel the atmospheric Welsh village. I would like a little more suspense. But there's so much good in it, you wonder if you add something, would it knock the beauty off balance?

I received this copy from the Publisher and NetGalley.

My first question upon reading this book was, what are Morris Dancers? So I looked it up and found this video. It is a type of folk dance in Great Britain.
Video of Morris Dancers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZjLATAUwao Now that you have been treated to that little snippet, let me explain about what a “cozy mystery” actually is, just in case you were unaware of the genre. Cozy Mysteries are whodunnits without the gory details. There can be murders or other dastardly deals but the reader is spared the grisly and gruesome. Some famous Cozy authors are Agatha Christie, one of my favorites, Alan Bradley who writes the Flavia De Luce mysteries that I’ve previously reviewed and Charlaine Harris who writes the Aurora Teagarden mysteries.
This is a very British mystery set in present day Wales. I say it is very British because it is chock-a-block full of British slang and references to items that are not generally known in the USA. So because of those two things, the non-British reader is immersed in anglophilia and for this reader that is a delight. The ladies of the WISE agency are all distinctive personalities which adds to the enjoyment of the story as do the personalities of the other characters. There are several small mysteries to be solved within the pages along with discovering the whereabouts of the missing Morris dancer. There is some romance brewing and a baby on the way for some of the WISE women. I really was surprised that the agency ladies were able to access the Morris dancer’s home and rifle through his computer. They did justify this somewhat but it still seemed a bit illegal to me. I will not say too much because I don’t want to give away any spoilers but it was not difficult to figure out who the bad guy was and I might have enjoyed the story even more if he had been introduced earlier. In this read I was once again introduced to something I knew very little about, Morris Dancing. I look forward to reading more adventures of the WISE women from Cathy Ace and learning more about the Brits..

What a wonderful cozy mystery. This is the 2nd book in the series and the 2nd one I have read. I really enjoy these ladies and this series. The women of the WISE Enquiries Agency have settled in Wales. The Duke is getting married and one of the Morris dancers has gone missing. They have been hired to find him and the missing Morris Artifacts. The police are not convinced he is missing the town does not believe he would leave before the wedding. I really like the way the ladies work together. There are lots of Welsh traditions and the author does a very good job of capturing the Welsh Countryside. Despite the mystery there were also some laugh out loud parts. I am looking forword to reading the next book in the series and reading about their next adventures. This series should probably be read in order. Enjoy

Since reading the first book in this series last year, I've come to really like the four main characters, and I enjoyed their second "enquiry." Mavis, Annie, Carol, and Christine are settling in to the Welsh village of Anwen-on-Wye, each in their own way: Mavis is living at the Dower House with Althea, the Dowager Duchess, with whom she has become quite good friends. Carol and her husband love their little house in the village and are eagerly expecting the arrival of "Bump", their first child. Jamaican-born Annie also loves her tiny cottage, and she strikes up an unlikely friendship with the local publican, Tudor Evans, who is the leader of the Anwen Morris. And Christine's relationship with the enigmatic Alexander is proceeding -- it's time for him to meet the parents.

The mystery -- the WISE Enquiry Agency's first real case since relocating to Wales -- doesn't take a back seat to the quartet's daily lives, but neither does it overshadow them. That's due in part to the fact that this case strikes close to home. The missing man, Aubrey Morris, is the village handyman as well as the musician for the Morris dancers, and his absence threatens to disrupt age-old traditions surrounding the Duke of Chellingworth's wedding. Since the Duke is their benefactor, the WISE women are happy to investigate on his behalf. The case isn't difficult, but it does contain a few surprises along the way -- and an unexpectedly exciting denouement.

While I found it refreshing to read a missing-person mystery rather than the typical murder mystery, I didn't find this one quite as absorbing as the first book. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it -- I did -- but I didn't have any difficulty in setting the book aside for several weeks. To be honest, that could easily have been me rather than the book; I had a lot going on in my personal life at the time, and it was hard to stay focused on anything for very long.

On the other hand, I am enjoying the series for several reasons. I like the interplay of the four very different main characters, and I have fun imagining their accents, since Ace includes more than a trace of Mavis's Scots dialect, Carol's Welsh lilt, Annie's East-End London slang, and Christine's aristocratic tones, along with the locals' stronger Welsh accents. There are even occasional phrases and sentences in Welsh, which delighted me since I (self-)studied the language briefly in college. I also appreciate the ongoing secondary plots -- Christine's relationship with Alexander, Carol's pregnancy, and Annie's family and social life among them. I'm looking forward to seeing where Ms. Ace takes the series, and the characters, in the next book.