Mild mannered murder mystery

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Missing Diamond Murder, The (Black and Dod mysteries #3) 
by Diane Janes              

A throughly innocuous murder mystery. The detecting is by a mild mannered woman, Fran Black, in the throes of obtaining a divorce. Due to the legal difficulties of the time around granting of divorce Fran must be circumspect, so she and Tom Dod, a fellow member of the Robert Barnaby Society and a companion in previous family investigations, are keeping their distance. They obviously have feelings for each other but Tom is married with a son and that seems to be that.
A wealthy Devon family have had an heirloom diamond stolen and the patriarch of the family died in somewhat suspect circumstances. Fran is asked to circumspectly assist in looking into the disappearance of the diamonds as the family doesn't want to raise any sort of scandal and awkward questions.
Not a story that fully grabbed my attention, but I rather liked Fran. Not as clever as Agatha Christie characters, more in the vein of Murder She Wrote.

 A Severn House ARC via NetGalley

** 1/2

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