Miles Off Course

Miles Off Course is the third installment in the Rowland Sinclair mystery series.  What a fun series of mystery novels written by Sulari Gentill.  Though referring to these novels as mysteries is misleading.   Each of these books is based on some historical facts and characters, then a story of Rowland Sinclair, a wealthy country gentleman who is uncomfortable with his family's wealth and position has found a group of flamboyant friends who are living in the family home with him.  Milton, a frustrated poet, Clyde, starving artist and Edna the sculptor, with whom Rowland is in love, go on adventures to solve murders and expose the underbelly of crime in Australia. Rowland and his friends are on the political left and Wilfred Sinclair, Rowland's brother is on the right.  There is always a dust up between the two brothers that creates some intrigue.

This time one of the Sinclair's favorite employees has disappeared and Rowley volunteers at the urging of his brother to look into the situation.  taking along his companions they set off into the mountains outside Sydney and get into all kinds of trouble.  While it looks like they are just stumbling along, in the end all the discounted pieces fall in place and they always get their man.  That is what makes these mystery plots unique.  There is never a formula plot of the mystery to these novels.  Rowley and his friends just seem to be living their everyday extraordinary lives when things go wrong and suddenly there is a mystery to solve.  But it is not always a body, at least not int he beginning.

This time though there is a missing person and they think it could be a corpse they are looking for, when they find their employee, it leads to another mystery and even when they come across a dead body and it looks like that wraps up the case, it is not the end.  In the end it all is neatly packaged in a financial dilemma.

I still really enjoy the descriptions of Australian countryside and the colorful characters  The writing style and the wonderful way the author sets the scene for the 1930s time period brings the story to life for me.  I am getting attached to the characters with each new narrative.