Side Trip to Kathmandu (A Sidney Marsh Murder Mystery Book 3) by Marie Moore

dusting of tour guide spiel sprinkled over layers of gossip steeped in a brew of horrifying revelations about our new companions.
    According to Brooke, she selected each of our fellow guests primarily because he or she had endured the sudden death of someone close to them under questionable circumstances. Each one had inherited a great deal of money as a result. Suspicion, in some degree, had therefore been attached to each one following the tragic events. The facts on our new friends, winnowed from all the rumor and innuendo, were these:
    1. Adam’s young and beautiful wife had been the heiress to a manufacturing fortune. She had fallen into the sea and drowned while walking on a rocky cliff path on the coast of Cornwall in the first year of their marriage. There was some local chatter that she might have been pushed or the pathway stones loosened, but those theories were discounted as gossip by the authorities. Adam was her sole heir. He had never remarried but was often rumored to be in one relationship or another.
    2. Lucy had been married twice and inherited a fortune from each husband. The first husband died of food poisoning on a business trip to China. Lucy was in England at the time and was reported to be devastated by the news. In her sorrow she was comforted, some said physically, by her long-time friend, Felix. After several years had passed, she married again, this husband wealthier than the first. The second husband was hit by a car and killed coming home from a pub on a foggy night near their country estate in Northumberland. The teenage driver of the car was distraught and insisted to the policemen that he’d seen a second figure in the mist, but that was never proven and his story was discounted.
    3. Felix’s business partner apparently shot himself in his office after a great deal of money was reported missing from the firm. The loss of the money, however, was more than made up for by an enormous insurance policy he’d taken out before his death in which Felix was named as the sole beneficiary. The firm had purchased life insurance policies for each partner in the formative years of the business, so the suicide clause had expired and no longer applied. The insurance company and police investigated but cleared Felix of any involvement in his partner’s demise.
    4. Justin’s elderly aunt was strangled in her home by an intruder. There was no sign of a break-in, so some said that she must have known her assailant, but she had a reputation for leaving her doors unlocked. An itinerant housepainter was arrested for the crime. He claimed to be innocent but was convicted and was now in prison. Justin was his aunt’s sole heir. She had lived frugally in a small village in Provence, saving every spare franc. That savings, her insurance, and the escalation in value of her home and the surrounding real estate ultimately amounted to quite a pile of euros for Justin.
    5. Jasmine’s lover, a wealthy and internationally known Indian film director named A.J. Gupta, was found dead in his bed of a drug overdose. Heroin. His death was a surprise to everyone because he had never been known to use drugs. He left his entire fortune to Jasmine, much to the dismay of his wife and family.
    “So there you have it,” Brooke said, winding up her fascinating tale of sudden death and untimely inheritance. She leaned back in her middle seat as if the telling had exhausted her. Her eyes closed and Jay and I exchanged glances. He shrugged and turned to watch the buildings along the wide street, the embassies of various nations. I also looked out my window at the passing scene, noting the fading display of former colonial power as evidenced in some crumbling mansions, even while sorting through the stories I had just heard in my mind.
    As soon as we had left the hotel and Brooke’s narrative began, Jay and I had paid scant attention to our surroundings, so absorbed were we in her stories of our fellow travelers. Every so often