A review by sophiarose1816
The Copenhagen Connection by Elizabeth Peters

lighthearted mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

A vacation to Denmark leads a young publisher's assistant on a mystery with a favorite author's grumpy son in tow on a Scandinavian adventure.  An Elizabeth Peters' standalone that harkens back to the 80's.

Elizabeth Jones is an American publisher's assistant now acting as tourist setting out on her dream vacation to Denmark.  On the plane over, she is distracted when she spots her favorite author ever.  She does a fan faux pas trying to drum up an accidental meeting near the author's seat by annoying said author's son.  But, Margaret is nothing like the person Elizabeth expected from such a celebrated author.  She's eccentric and impulsive- quite the opposite of her stern son, Christian.

Elizabeth gets her chance to stick close to Margaret when an incident at the airport creates an opening for Elizabeth to jump in and become Margaret's author assistant.  Only, before they can start work researching Queen Margaret of Denmark, the present day Margaret vanishes.  In an 'is she or isn't she' really missing or just given them the slip situation, Elizabeth and Christian rush around Copenhagen tracking clues to finding Margaret.  The result puts them in the crosshairs of someone who doesn't want Margaret found or that they find out the mysterious reason Margaret disappeared.

The Copenhagen Connection starts out slow when it comes to the main plot thread.  In fact, its not until well into the book before the reader-listener has confirmation there is a real mystery.  Elizabeth has to slowly warm to Christian and respect that he truly has reason to be alarmed so the first third of the book is her tagging along and giving him the side-eye over his concerns.  I was more taken with the Copenhagen setting descriptions than the plot.

But, then it got going and the situation becomes more clear- and the suspense along with 'caper' part is revealed much to my satisfaction.  The opposites working together got much more interesting and I enjoyed their dive into Scandinavian historical matters as they hunted.

Grace Conlin does a bang up job narrating the book as she has all the other Elizabeth Peters' standalone stories I've been enjoying on audio lately.

So, its slow at the start, but stick around for the interesting part in this old-style romantic suspense.