Happy Tuesday everyone. And I’m back with a murder mystery this week after taking a break for romance with While You Were Seething last week.
It’s 1935 and Dora is on the run from a fiancée she didn’t want in the first place. When she arrives in London she finds he has followed her there and hides in the London Library together away from him. Except inside the library she finds a dead body. Now she’s inside her first murder investigation and she is not the girl to walk away. She’s a book lover who particularly likes detective fiction but who is also the sort of person who notices everything and she’s sure she can help Detective Inspector Fox. He however is not so convinced.
Harriet F Townson is actually Harriet Evans writing under a different name to differentiate this from her usual genre. Because this is a historical mystery romp. It really is a romp. Dora is a delightfully quirky heroine and the plot just rattles along as she makes new friends in London, meets old friends and tries to solve the crime. There are references galore to the golden age of crime – including one of the characters living in Mecklenberg Square – home of Dorothy L Sayers in real life (more on that tomorrow) and her creation Harriet Vane (in the Gaudy Night).
I raced through this in one evening basically and I really hope there is a sequel because Dora is a lot of fun and there are enough plot threads left hanging to suggest it’s a possibility. It was also nominated for a Crime Writers Association Award so that’s got to help to right? This has got comps in the blurb with the aforementioned Sayers as well as Margery Allingham, Enola Holmes (only watched the Netflix films) and I Capture the Castle which sounds a bit bonkers on the eclectic front but I sort of endorse that! If you (like me!) like series like Veronica Speedwell, Daisy Dalrymple or Phryne Fisher, this is definitely worth a look.
I read this on Kindle, but it’s also in Kobo and should be available in paperback too
Happy Reading!
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 