I can't believe this was an Edgar Award winner, but I might even have given this book 4 stars if it weren't for one major plothole: Charles Chandler tries to get married before Elizabeth to get the inheritance from their great-aunt, except that she is not Elizabeth's great-aunt. Elizabeth's mother Margaret is sister to Aunt Amanda, and Amanda's husband Dr. Chandler is the son of "Captain Grandfather" Chandler, who is the brother of the dead great-aunt. If anything, the old lady is Elizabeth's great-aunt-in-law, but is Amanda had married any other man, there would be no relationship. Unless, of course, Amanda and her husband are first cousins, which seems to be legal in Georgia, according to http://www.cousincouples.com/?page=states, but that's too icky to think about. I don't know how the editors missed that, but it is an easy-to-fix problem that could have been fixed by changing the grandfather's last name to whatever Amanda and Margaret's maiden name is, and he would be an official grandfather to all the cousins involved.Once again the mystery is solved by Geoffrey, and wrapped up really fast at the end, and Elizabeth is indifferent to the whole thing, having practically no involvement after she answers the question of what's inside the urn.
***Update 4/7/12 - I have finally started reading the first book in this series, "Sick of Shadows," which says that Amanda and her husband Robert are indeed second cousins. It would have been nice if that was mentioned again in this book to clarify for those who haven't read the whole series in order,or forgot, since it is only mentioned pretty briefly.