The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths

Mariner Books, 368 pages, $15.99 (2019)

“The Stranger Diaries” is a finalist for the Edgar Award for Best Novel.

I really enjoyed Elly Griffith’s series featuring modern forensic archaeologist, Ruth Galloway. Then she started a series featuring WWII magicians, of which I read a couple. I don’t know if one or more of the characters in “The Stranger Diaries” will star in a series, but I would be pleased if that happened.

“Stranger Diaries” is the sort of book I would have really loved reading as a teenager or young adult. There are mysterious lights in the night, maybe a ghost or two, maybe a witch or two, a séance, an estate once owned by the author of a famous horror story, strange scribblings found in a private diary, and a plucky young girl. The sound you heard was me rubbing my hands together in anticipation.

Indeed, Elly Griffiths delivers on the cozy part. And she gets bonus points for interesting characters.

DS Harbinder Kaur is the sort of detective I’d want on a murder case. She’s thoughtful and intelligent. She’s also Sikh and short, not that I mean to imply either is a liability, but I guess that is what I am saying. Both do make it difficult to make one’s way through a police bureaucracy and a still mostly white population near London, England, but neither point is belabored. In fact, Kaur’s parents, with whom she still lives, are sources of great joy and amusement to her, as they should be to Griffiths’ readers.

Kaur meets Clare Cassidy, an English teacher at the local high school, on a case. Clare is currently teaching some students about R. M. Holland’s short story, “The Stranger,” a famous horror story. Holland, in fact, once owned the building in which Clare teaches. His study has been kept intact on the upper floor. And there are a couple of mysteries which surround his occupancy of the erstwhile mansion. People have seen the ghost of his wife flitting about. She supposedly died from a fall down the stairs. Her blood-curdling screams still can be heard by the unlucky. The ghost sighting is said to presage someone’s death.

Spooky, yeah?

Clare’s best friend, Ella, another teacher at the high school, has been murdered. Who would want to murder a teacher beloved by students and respected by her fellow teachers? Kaur interviews Clare as one of the last people to have seen or talked with her. Clare’s fifteen-year-old daughter, Georgia, is a student at the high school. She also knew and liked Ella. She, too, is perplexed by who would have wanted her dead, and she will not be left out of the investigation.

The book is seen through those three viewpoints: Kaur, Clare, and Georgia. As Kaur proceeds to investigate, we glimpse another view through Clare’s and Georgia’s eyes. After a second death, Kaur begins to again wonder if Clare might have undisclosed knowledge or if she might be the next victim. As far as we readers are concerned, there is the bonanza of entries from Clare’s obligingly kept diaries. Those entries can take us back in time, instead of through tediously engineered flashbacks.

All in all, this book was entertaining, well-paced, and a great combination of ghost story, thriller, and romance. DS Kaur was a delightful surprise throughout. (And I would like an invitation to her mother’s house for dinner, please.)