I do think that to enjoy this series one must accept the premise: that the retired teacher is naive and too innocent for her own good - yet has an innate instinct to observe the truth in her sketches. While I do accept the sketch part, I have yet to meet a teacher unexperienced in life!
This installment also does not work for me because of the environment - while the British village where Miss Ess resides and its inhabitants are charming, the Continental Europe characters do not have that appeal.

Emily Seeton, aka Miss Seeton, Miss Ess, or the Battling Brolly, is the fictional heroine in a series of British cosy mystery novels written in part by Heron Carvic; then following Carvic's death, by Roy Peter Martin, writing as Hampton Charles (I guess preferring to focus more on his own "The Superintendent Otani Mysteries" under the name of James Melville); then picked by Sarah J. Mason (writing as Hamilton Crane), before branching out on her own with the “Trewley & Stone” series .

In each book, we find Miss Seeton using her skills as an art teach as she randomly draws psychologically and, perhaps, psychically informative sketches that allow Inspector Delphick of the Yard, and his assistant Bob Ranger, to solve the crime. The primary storyline is the seemingly naive and oblivious Miss Seeton finding herself in awkward situations, then managing to provide enough random clues and insights for the detectives to use to solve these mysteries.

I have read a number of titles in the series (of which there are 23 - 22 and a prequel). The character of Miss Seeton is standard cosy fare (elderly spinster involved in solving crimes); the villagers, distinctly unique (reference "The Nuts"); the crimes predominantly local with a few trips further afield; the community, typically English of the 1950s style. Whilst the first five stories were original and charming, as the series goes on, it does get a bit repetitive, and with so much crime in one sleepy village, I'm surprised Scotland Yard has opened a branch there! In the end, Miss Seeton comes across as a poor man's Miss Marple crossed with Inspector Clouseau as the final author, I feel, struggles to provide anything original with which to involve our heroine.

Cute. Like most Miss Seeton books (well, Heron Carvic's, anyway), it's a nice bit of fluff. Miss Seeton is appealingly fluffy, though there are rather more serious things going on around her than usual - two major deaths, one of them a villain and one a good guy (in several senses of the word). She does _notice_ things, even if she forgets that she saw them afterward...if the good guys are there to hear her babble, things get fixed.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this book - however, I've found I really, really don't like this series. I have not rated or reviewed the book.