{"id":6515,"date":"2025-07-03T07:53:28","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T14:53:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=6515"},"modified":"2025-07-03T07:53:28","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T14:53:28","slug":"liza-tully-the-worlds-greatest-detective-and-her-just-okay-assistant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/liza-tully-the-worlds-greatest-detective-and-her-just-okay-assistant\/","title":{"rendered":"Liza Tully: The World’s Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>This series debut was a complete delight.\u00a0 Lead character Aubrey Merritt, the \u201cGreatest Detective,\u201d is a 60 something lady with a pristine reputation for cracking difficult cases, clearly cast in the Sherlock Holmes mold.\u00a0 As the book opens, she finds her somewhat hapless Watson in the person of assistant Olivia Blunt, an obsessed low level stalker who had always dreamt of working for Merritt. When she\u2019s hired, she happily jettisons her job and informs her fianc\u00e9 she\u2019ll be away on a case, only to realize too late it might mean missing his off-Broadway debut.\u00a0 She hopes very much to be back in time, and he\u2019s completely supportive, though he does fruitlessly beg her throughout the book to please call his mother, who is planning their wedding.<\/p>\n

Merritt informs Olivia that she\u2019ll be driving, and they take off to Lake Champlain in her decrepit and noisy car, Horace (I\u2019m surprised it made the whole trip, having owned a couple of Horace like vehicles of my own).\u00a0 They\u2019ve been asked by the daughter of a recent alleged suicide to look into her mother\u2019s death, as the daughter is sure it\u2019s really a case of murder.\u00a0 This is a murder mystery novel, so the answer to that question ought to be obvious.<\/p>\n

The dead woman was the widowed owner of a wealthy man who left his resort empire to her.\u00a0 When they married (she was the second wife) he already had two children, and together, they had two more.\u00a0 Her stepchildren do not seem overly fond of her, but otherwise she appears to have been a joyful, generous woman who enjoyed her life to the fullest, a big reason her daughter Haley is so mystified by her apparent suicide.<\/p>\n

Because of Merritt\u2019s reputation, the local police welcome her assistance, and she in turn promises to share anything she discovers. Detectives Merritt and Olivia are polar opposites, with Merritt being logical and unemotional, with a photographic memory, even though she demands Olivia document in detail everything they uncover. Olivia is emotional, unsure of herself, and hugely empathic, something Merritt seems to be continually warning her against.\u00a0 But of course, it\u2019s the combination of their two contrasting personalities and traits that makes for mystery magic.<\/p>\n

As they interview each suspect \u2013 family members, the dead woman\u2019s boyfriend, and an accountant named \u2013 ahem \u2013 Arthur Doyle \u2013 the pieces begin to come together, at least for Merritt.\u00a0 To Olivia it\u2019s more of a through the glass darkly situation, though she manages to uncover some salient facts that she is ultimately able to put together into a solution.<\/p>\n

The book ends with the traditional summing up, as the master detective goes through each relevant suspect in turn, finally landing on the killer. This is all done with such a light and intelligent hand that the result is pure reading joy from beginning to end.\u00a0 The updating of Holmes-Watson has of course been done before, but this take is done exceptionally well, and I very much look forward to the next instalment.\u00a0— Robin Agnew<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This series debut was a complete delight.\u00a0 Lead character Aubrey Merritt, the \u201cGreatest Detective,\u201d is a 60 something lady with a pristine reputation for cracking difficult cases, clearly cast in the Sherlock Holmes mold.\u00a0 As the book opens, she finds her somewhat hapless Watson in the person of assistant Olivia Blunt, an obsessed low level … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[189,2180,2177,1276,1441,2179,2178,1436],"class_list":["post-6515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-berkley","tag-lake-champlain","tag-liza-tully","tag-robin-agnew","tag-series-debut","tag-sherlock-and-watson","tag-the-worlds-greatest-detective-and-her-just-okay-assistant","tag-traditional-detection"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6515"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6516,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6515\/revisions\/6516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}