“When I learned of Aunt Dimity’s death, I was stunned; not because she was dead, but because she had never been alive.” The author says she woke at about three in the morning with that sentence in her head. It opens Nancy Atherton’s first novel, published in hardcover by Viking in New York in 1992. The book began a series that now has 25 novels.
What Is Aunt Dimity’s Death About?
Lori Shepherd is about thirty, divorced, and working as an office temp in Boston. Her mother has recently died. As a child she loved her mother’s bedtime stories, and she always thought Aunt Dimity was just a character her mother made up.
Then a letter from a Boston law firm, Willis & Willis, summons her to the reading of a will. Dimity Westwood was real. She was an Englishwoman Lori’s mother met during the Second World War, and the two women wrote to each other for four decades. Now Dimity has died and left her a bequest. To inherit a sizable estate, down-on-her-luck Lori must spend a month in Dimity’s English country cottage near the village of Finch. There she has to sort through a treasure trove of correspondence and write an introduction to Dimity’s stories. The younger lawyer, Bill Willis, goes with her to England.
In the house she finds a blue journal. When she writes in it, an answer appears in old-fashioned handwriting: Dimity’s. Something in the past still troubles the dead woman, and Lori must discover the secret hidden in the old papers.
Is It Really a Murder Mystery?
No, and it helps to know that before you start. The death in the title is Dimity’s, and it happens before the story begins. Nobody is killed, and nobody is ever in real danger. One newspaper called it the puzzle of a mystery minus the corpses. What she uncovers belongs to Dimity’s wartime past. It is a gentle mystery with romance and a spirit, not a whodunit.
Our Review: A Fairy Tale With a Ghost in It
What begins as a fairy tale becomes a mystery and a ghost story. It is at its best in the quiet countryside: the journal that writes back, the old correspondence and her childhood toy rabbit, Reginald. Dimity’s voice is kind and funny, and the bond between the living woman and the dead one is touching.
Lori herself is harder to love. She can be prickly and rude, especially to her lawyer, and some readers lose patience with her. Kirkus called the book amiable and stylishly written, but warned that readers would need a high tolerance for sentimental silliness. Publishers Weekly was cooler and thought the lack of suspense was a real weakness. We side with the readers who come back to it. It is a warm, cozy story for a rainy evening, as long as you expect comfort rather than thrills. The Independent Mystery Booksellers Association voted it one of the century’s 100 favourite mysteries.
Is Aunt Dimity’s Death Part of a Series? The Aunt Dimity Books in Order
Yes. It is the first of 25 novels. Lori Shepherd leads all but one: book 2, Aunt Dimity and the Duke, follows a different woman, Emma Porter, in Cornwall. Read the rest in order, because her life in Finch moves on from book to book. Every title starts with the words Aunt Dimity:
- Aunt Dimity’s Death (1992)
- … and the Duke (1994)
- Aunt Dimity’s Good Deed (1996)
- … Digs In (1998)
- Aunt Dimity’s Christmas (1999)
- … Beats the Devil (2000)
- …: Detective (2001)
- … Takes a Holiday (2003)
- …: Snowbound (2004)
- … and the Next of Kin (2005)
- … and the Deep Blue Sea (2006)
- … Goes West (2007)
- …: Vampire Hunter (2008)
- … Slays the Dragon (2009)
- … Down Under (2010)
- … and the Family Tree (2011)
- … and the Village Witch (2012)
- … and the Lost Prince (2013)
- … and the Wishing Well (2014)
- … and the Summer King (2015)
- … and the Buried Treasure (2016)
- … and the Widow’s Curse (2017)
- … and the King’s Ransom (2018)
- … and the Heart of Gold (2019)
- … and the Enchanted Cottage (2022)
The latest is Aunt Dimity and the Enchanted Cottage. No 26th book has been announced.
Where Can I Buy It, and in What Formats?
Penguin publishes the current paperback and the ebook in the US, and Hachette sells the ebook in the UK. A two-in-one edition, Introducing Aunt Dimity, Paranormal Detective, pairs the first two books. The first hardcover is now only available secondhand. Your library may also have it on Libby as an ebook or audiobook.
Teri Clark Linden reads the current unabridged audiobook, an Audible Studios edition from 2013 that runs 9 hours 20 minutes. Libraries also carry an older recording by Christina Moore from 2000. It ends with a recipe, Beth’s Oatmeal Cookies, and every later title has one too.
Who Is Nancy Atherton?
She was born in Chicago and lives in Colorado Springs. Before she wrote fiction, she worked as a proofreader, copy editor and librarian, and also at a ski lodge and a dude ranch. She has said she does not know where Dimity came from; the first sentence simply arrived one night. For an American writer, she captures the English village remarkably well.
Quick Facts
| Title | Aunt Dimity’s Death |
|---|---|
| Author | Nancy Atherton |
| Series | Book 1 of 25 |
| First published | Hardcover first, then a Penguin paperback in 1993 |
| Setting | Boston and the Cotswolds |
| Sleuth | Lori, with Bill |
| Audiobook | Narrated by Teri Clark Linden, 9 h 20 min (Audible Studios, 2013); older library edition by Christina Moore, 7 h 29 min |
| Recipe | Beth’s Oatmeal Cookies |
| Next book | Aunt Dimity and the Duke |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there any violence?
No. There is no murder and no violence, only a few eerie moments.
Is it scary?
Hardly. The spirit is friendly, and the haunt is sad rather than frightening.
What should I read next?
For another English village, try M.C. Beaton’s Death of a Gossip, or browse our British cozy mysteries and paranormal cozy mysteries.