When a friend of their Aunt's visits Mim's Whims to order a variety of hats with an Alice in Wonderland theme, they are both a little confused. Dotty has chosen to live in her own world for a long time. Her family is planning a fund raiser to build a wing on a local hospital. Mr. Grisby left his family years ago and spent his remaining years with his mistress. Dotty couldn't deal with the shame so she has pretended that he is on a business trip.

With his death, Grisby family is in a real state due to the will. Planning the party on top of it has really stretched their patience and civility.

The party starts off well but soon becomes chaotic with an unexpected and unwelcome visitor and then the discovery of a dead man. The victim is Geoffrey Grisby and the heir to family business and fortune.

Scarlett will be drawn into the investigation as she was the one who discovered the body. What she discovers will put her in danger as she gets close to exposing the killer.

The Hat Shop Mysteries are my favorites of the series that Ms. McKinlay has written. Scarlett is fish out of water in England. Her sense of humor is American and her British friends don't appreciate it at all. This is the second in the series and DEATH OF A MAD HATTER was just as good as the first. I can't wait for the next book.

Book Summary

Scarlett Parker and her British cousin, Vivian Tremont, are hard at work at Mim’s Whims—their ladies’ hat shop on London’s chic Portobello Road—to create hats for an Alice in Wonderland themed afternoon tea, a fund-raiser for a local children’s hospital. It seems like a wonderfully whimsical way to pass the hat, and Scarlett and Viv are delighted to outfit the Grisby family, the hosts who are hoping to raise enough money to name a new hospital wing after their patriarch.

Unfortunately, the Grisby heir will not live to see it—he’s been poisoned. When traces of the poison are found on the hat Scarlett and Viv made for him, the police become curiouser and curiouser about their involvement. Now the ladies need to don their thinking caps and find the tea party crasher who’s mad enough to kill at the drop of a hat