Capacity for Murder

Author: Bernadette Pajer
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
Genre: Mystery
ISBN: 978-1-4642-0126-4
Pages: 250
Price: $24.95

Professor Benjamin Bradshaw has been urgently summoned to the Healing Sands Sanitarium for an incident of electrical nature. The year is 1903, and electricity is still in its early years. When the request comes with an all-expenses-paid invitation for himself and his students to stay at the sanitarium, he agrees and packs up his class, along with his son, his associate, Henry, and Henry’s niece, Missouri.

Bradshaw is widowed, and has a fondness for Missouri that has developed over the first two books in this series. He is also well-known as an expert in solving homicide cases involving electricity.

When Bradshaw arrives at Healing Sands, he finds that the patients currently in treatment are unable to leave due to a death at the sanitarium. But was this a case of accidental death or was it murder? As Bradshaw investigates, he digs up information someone doesn’t want him to know, and risks his life in exposing the killer.

Capacity for Murder is well-written with an intriguing plot set at the turn of the 20th century. Historical information is nicely blended with a fast-paced story and a finely crafted mystery. This is the first book I’ve read in this series, but I look forward to seeing more of Professor Bradshaw.

Reviewer: Alice Berger