The Curse of Penryth Hall is engrossing. Ruby, our protagonist, is a disgraced heiress living in exile in Exter. There she works for her landlord, Mr. Owen, who sells rare books. Ruby is jaded, drinks too much, and is rather reckless. She's also generous and stubborn. As the book opens, Mr. Owen sends her with a box of books to a small village in Cornwall. The books, it turns out, are for Ruan Kivell, the town's Pellar, a wise man/witch/folk healer character. After making her delivery she stops a Penryth Hall to visit Tamsyn, an old friend with whom she has a complicated history. It's clear at dinner that Tamsyn's husband is not a good man. The reader is not surprised when he ends up dead the next morning, a victim of "the curse" according to the locals. Ruby doesn't believe in curses, but she does believe in protecting her friend and uncovering the truth.
Cornwall is a superstitious, suspicious place still...
Brimming with Old Hollywood glitz and mystery, Enchanted Hill follows two outsiders, an aspiring private investigator and an alleged thief/murderer, as they infiltrate the estate of Truman Byrd, newspaper owner and Hollywood producer. The story takes place during a week-long house party with a group of movie stars, political figures, and powerful "friends" all vying for fortune, prestige, and power. The estate is lovely and exotic and filled with hidden spaces and secret doors. The atmosphere is both sparkling and privileged and claustrophobic.
Cora, our PI, is runing out of time to gather the evidence she needs when the last person she ever imagined seeing again shows up with a new name and dyed hair - Jack. Their history is complicated and the author does a good job dealing with the tensions and attractions between them. I went into the book expecting a historical mystery, which it is, but for me it felt more like a romance or romantic suspense....
Murder at Everham Hall had everything I adore in a mystery, but it somehow fell a little short for me. Marius Quin, our amateur sleuth, is invited by an ex-girlfriend, Bella, to a New Year's house party at the home of her friend, actor Cecil Sinclair. As is to be expected, Sinclair ends up murdered and the house is snowed in, so the police can't get to them. Marius, deemed the most likely to be able to solve a crime by virtue of being a (struggling) mystery writer, starts questioning people and hunting for clues. All of the guests are suspects, of course, except Bella who is Marius' sidekick, but some have better motives than others.
I never really warmed up to Marius and had trouble buying into the situation. Marius is struggling with his second book and his childhood sweetheart/friend just happens to invite him to a swanky house party where there just happens to be a murder. It...
In April 1921, the three Linwood siblings, Alan, an archeologist, Roger, an engineer, and Caroline, a journalist, return to their family estate in Yorkshire for their adoptive father’s funeral. Their father, the late Sir Lawrence Linwood, had been bludgeoned to death in his study with a medieval flanged mace by an unknown assailant. Upon the reading of Sir Lawrence’s will, they are made aware of a “find my killer” clause wherein in the case of an unnatural death, the one who can solve his murder inherits his estate. As father has in fact been brutally murdered, this is the start of an investigation that will delve into the deeply buried secrets of the Linwood family.
Lawrence Linwood was a terrible person, abusive to his children and wife, controlling and manipulative ov the entire village. I tend to read traditional and cozy mysteries and while abuse is sometimes a topic, it's not usually shown as often or in detail. Reading of...
The Last Drop of Hemlock is set in New York City in the 1920s. This is the second in the series and, while it does work as a stand-alone, I think you get a much better feeling for the characters if you read them in order. Vivian and her sister, Florence, are poor, but better off than they used to be. The setting, from their tenement building to the club where Viv works to the street's cities, felt real. I loved the details - the smells, the sights, the people.
The mystery was well done. In a city where everyone works by their own moral standards, some of which are more gray than others, there are plenty of suspects in the murder. And Vivian's reasons for looking into the death make sense- they can't trust the cops. She has to call in a favor or two and puts herself in a couple of dangerous positions, but it all feels in character....
I love the combo of magicians and murder. Add in the Golden Age feel and Mead's Joseph Spector novels have me hooked.
This time around, Edmund Ibbs is a rather new solicitor helping represent Carla Dean who is accused of killing her husband at the top of a Ferris Wheel. Ibbs, an aspiring magician, takes a break from work to attend a performance of the Great Paolini. A second dead man is revealed during one of the tricks, a man slightly connected to the Dean murder. Luckily, Joseph Spector, retired magician and sometimes Scotland Yard consultant, is also in the audience.
What follows is a high-stakes investigation by Spector and Ibbs. The characters are well-written and believable. There are several potential suspects and a big baddie who may or may not be involved. As in any good mystery involving magic, there are plenty of misdirections and distractions. We've got essentially two locked-room mysteries here and while the author plays fair...
