Note: Thank you to NetGalley, Bookouture, and Helena Dixon for the advanced reader copy of the book. This review will also be posted on NetGalley. What follows is my unbiased review of the book.

When I saw this was book #15 in a series, I groaned inside. Usually, when I approach a series of books, I prefer to start at the beginning. However, I decided to do my best to see where this one would take me. I was happily surprised that I really didn’t need to read the books prior to this as the story stands well on its own.

In the year 1936, Kitty Underhay and her friend Alice travel to a new hotel about to open on Bird Island, off the coast of England. They represent the local hotel association and Sir Norman Whittier, the hotel’s owner. would like to get the approval of the association and to have the hotel included in their directory. Joining them is an acting troop under the direction of Sir Norman’s fiancée, Marie Monbiere. The hotel is beautiful and looks like Sir Norman spared no expense. A terrible storm was brewing as they traveled to the island by boat, and soon the guests find themselves unable to leave the hotel.

When Sir Norman doesn’t show up for dinner, they go looking for him and find him inside his locked office, dead. At first it seems like a suicide, but there is no note. There are other irregularities in the scene, and soon Kitty and several others believe someone staged the scene to look like a suicide and cover up a murder. With the police unable to get there due to the storm, Kitty secures the scene until they can investigate and come to their own conclusions.

I felt that Murder at the Island Hotel had a definite Agatha Christie feel to it. The setting and style really brought that back for me. The murderer can only be one of the people staying in the hotel. There are farmers on one end of the island, but even they would not have ventured out to the hotel in the storm. Kitty talks to people and tries to feel them out without submitting them to overt questioning; that is for the police to do. However, she can see certain personalities begin to come out the more time they are all cooped up together.

There was plenty of mystery to go around. I had a couple of different ideas and kept changing my mind as I was reading. Dixon did a terrific job keeping me guessing at who the killer was. At times, I did feel like the book was repetitious once the police were there to question the guests. It felt like the same thing was being gone over again and again. I understand that they have to ask questions like this to see if their stories would change, but it does cause the pace to slow down. How many times we hear about the Chief Inspector flipping through his notes, instead of just getting to the meat of the story.

I did enjoy it, however. I would be inclined to go back and see how Kitty and her husband, Matt, met and how she ended up falling into this line of work. Matt comes to the island with the police to act as a witness since a constable is not available. They normally work as a team of private investigators, and it is Kitty who puts it all together at the end. A woman was not expected to be involved in this type of work, so she is cast aside for much of the police investigation. I find the whole concept to be very interesting.

I did like Murder at the Island Hotel a lot. For a book that’s so far into the series, it’s completely accessible to new readers. If you like Agatha Christie-style murder mysteries I think you’ll enjoy this.