Murder at the Castle by M. B. Shaw Narrator: Penelope Rawlins
Series: An Iris Grey Mystery #2
Published by HighBridge on January 3, 2022
Source: Purchased
Genres: Mystery
Length: 15 hrs 9 mins
Pages: 385
Format: Audiobook
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Painter (and amateur sleuth) Iris Grey enters a world of buried secrets, village gossip, family feuds, and murder in the latest cozy mystery from New York Times bestselling author M. B. Shaw.
Portrait painter Iris Grey arrives at Pitfeldy Castle in the Scottish Highlands, at the request of Baron Jock MacKinnon. Jock has commissioned Iris to paint a portrait of his fiancée, American socialite Kathy Miller, ahead of their New Year wedding. Kathy invites Iris into her confidence, as she's received a series of threatening notes asking her to call off the wedding. Iris begins to investigate, and when a body is discovered in the grounds of the castle, she fears for Kathy's safety. With the wedding fast approaching, Iris tries to solve a mystery that is caught up in a rarified world of family feuds, romantic intrigue, buried secrets, and murder.
Murder at the Castle is the second in the Iris Grey series, and while it can certainly be read as a stand-alone, events from the previous book are referenced. The author gives enough information that a new reader wouldn’t be lost, but since that case is why Iris is in Scotland and does affect how she views things, I think it’s worth reading.
Iris is commissioned to paint a portrait of Kathy Miller, a beautiful American due to marry a wealthy elderly Baron, Jock MacKinnon. MacKinnon’s adult children dislike Kathy intensely – she displaced their own mother in the castle and she’s much younger than the Baron. The townsfolk don’t like her because she has some new ideas about how things around the castle should be run – and she’s American. Kathy’s been receiving threatening letters, which she wants Iris’s help putting a stop to. There’s already plenty of tension before the two women’s bodies are found buried on the castle grounds.
This is not quite a cozy mystery, although Iris is an amateur sleuth and it’s set in a quirky small town. It’s a little darker, the romance is a little sexier, the topics are a little tougher. That being said, I did enjoy it. The mystery moved along at a decent pace and I loved the short trip to Venice. We’ve got a lot of tangled threads, buried secrets, and questionable loyalties. I can’t say the killer was a surprise, but Iris does a good job of putting all the clues together.
About M. B. Shaw
M.B. Shaw is the pen-name of New York Times bestselling writer Tilly Bagshawe. Tilly Bagshawe is the international bestselling author of nine previous novels. A single mother at seventeen, Tilly won a place at Cambridge University and took her baby daughter with her.
She went on to enjoy a successful career in the City before becoming a writer. As a journalist, Tilly contributed regularly to the Sunday Times, Daily Mail and Evening Standard before following in the footsteps of her sister Louise and turning her hand to novels.
Tilly’s first book, Adored, was a smash hit on both sides of the Atlantic and she hasn’t looked back since. Tilly and her family divide their time between their homes in Kensington and Los Angeles and their beach house on Nantucket Island.