Murder by Death

Halfway through this one I was thinking 3/3.5 stars because the beginning, the premise, was far-fetched, even for a cozy series that has a strong Indiana Jones feel to it.  Once I got beyond that though, the story was fun.  It's a cozy adventure... a treasure hunt complete with clues in the form of illuminated manuscript scraps and bad guys racing to get there first.  If you're looking for dead bodies, you'll be disappointed.

The plot concerns a secret room underneath an old abbey, rumoured to contain vast treasure appropriated from India just before the French Revolution and hidden by the monks to protect it from being looted.

As seems to be then norm with Gigi Pandian's writing, a lot of the story here is tied to historical facts and any liberties she takes with actual people or events she details in an author's note at the back.  How can you not like a treasure hunt story that teaches history at the same time?

It was fun, it was well-written, and it kept me entertained well enough to distract me from having a cold.  I can't ask for much more than that from a story.