The Mysterious Affair of Judith Potts, by Robert Thorogood

I am cheating; the them for SuperWendy’s TBR Challenge for September is “lush life”. Now, things can be lush in the sense of glorious or blooming or abundant or luxurious, but I first encountered the word (as an adult ESL learner) to mean ‘someone who’s habitually drunk’–which fits Judith Potts to a T. So while the book has only been in my digital TBR since February (and yes, I’m late reviewing an ARC again, dammit), it technically fits the brief. Reader beware: alcoholism; domestic violence; xenophobia (not the way you think); elderly parent with dementia (on page); PTSD. The Mysterious Affair of Judith Potts, by Robert Thorogood The book starts with a prologue that is the continuation of the last scene in Murder on the Marlow Belle; the woman who shows up, unannounced and unwelcome at Judith’s door late at night, disrupting the latter’s moment of triumph upon solving yet another murder case, is revealed to be one Eleni Paphides–the illegitimate daughter of Judith’s late husband,…