The Last Word is technically the latest Harbinder Kauer novel, although judging by the list of previous books, Griffiths isn’t calling the series by her name, and she is only peripheral to the investigation. Instead, this novel returns to characters who appeared five years ago in The Postscript Murders. This put me off a bit, because I had no memory at all of these characters and had to look up which book they were in, yet Griffiths clearly expects us to remember them.
The characters are Edwin, a gay man in his 80s; Natalka, a young Ukrainian immigrant; and Benedict, Natalka’s boyfriend, who used to be a monk. Natalka runs a care-giving business, but since the events of the previous book, she has also opened a detective agency, and Edwin is her partner. Benedict runs a coffee shop.
Although the death of Melody Chambers has been found to be of natural causes, her daughters hire Natalka to investigate: Minnie and Harmony are convinced their stepfather, Alan Warner, killed Melody by replacing her blood pressure medicine, and they produce as proof a snippet that sounds like she was afraid for her life. The only problem is that Melody was a writer, so the snippet could be part of a novel.
Edwin is an obituary reader, so he has already noticed the death of Malcolm Collins, an obituary writer. As they look into things further, they begin to notice that several writers have died, and they all seem to be linked to a writers’ retreat at Battle. So, Edwin and Benedict sign up for the retreat. On the retreat, another participant, Sue, drowns in the pond. Her fiancé had died a few years before.
I think Griffiths depends a little too much on our memories of these characters to develop them further, and I didn’t have any, although of course things are going on in their private lives. I felt either that I didn’t know them very well or that I was relatively indifferent to them. Also, there are so many suspects in this case that I ended up not even trying to guess what was going on.
I’m beginning to think I’m over Griffiths. She ended the series I liked best, and I just haven’t been that interested in her other ones.
What? Me Read? 
I haven’t started with Griffiths yet but I’m getting the feeling that the later series’ are running out of steam, which is the first series?
I am not sure. The one I like is the Ruth Galloway series.