Category: historical

Book of the Week, detective, historical

Book of the Week: D is for Death

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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!

historical, Series I love

Mystery series: Brighton Mysteries

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Given that I binged three of this series just last week, today’s series pick may not surprise you. The only downside to having read three of them last week is that I’ve now run out and read another Elly Griffiths series from start to end and there are No More. Hey ho.

The Brighton mysteries start in 1950, when DI Edgar Stephens finds a body of a girl that’s been cut into three – which reminds him of a magic trick invented by a friend of his that he served with during the war. Edgar goes to hunt out Max for his help and finds him still touring the variety circuit of seaside towns around the country. And that’s how the seven book series gets underway – initially with Edgar and Max and mysteries and as you go through the seven books more characters joining them. Max’s involvement becomes a little less central to the mysteries in later books where you see more of Edgar and WPC Emma Holmes at work – but he’s always part of the mysteries because they are all so connected to the theatre and entertainment industries.

The seven books cover more than 16 years, so a lot changes in the characters lives as you follow them through – but also you see the world changing too: from post war austerity through to the swinging sixties and the changes in attitudes that that brought with them. Brighton also changes a lot during that time – with the rise of TV, the death of end of the pier variety and vaudeville and the coming of cheap package holidays. It’s a great time to set a book – and the mysteries are good too. I think they’re pretty good on accuracy too – I spotted one complete howler* in the last book but it’s the first time I remember finding one of those in all seven of the books, so I’ll let it off. Anyway, these are good very readable mysteries that you can get sucked into reading one after another – the way you can with Griffiths’ Ruth Galloway series too.

You should be able to get hold of these fairly easily- they’re on Kindle and Kobo and I’ve been able to buy them in bookshops too.

Have a great weekend!

*a price that would be insane in a pre-decimalisation world – so possibly some confusion about when that happened.

historical, mystery, series

Mystery Series: County Guides

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Happy Friday everyone, it’s very, very cold where I am in the UK* and I’m seriously starting to think about starting Christmas shopping. I know. It’s still November. Anyway, after a romance series last week, here is a murder mystery one for you.

It’s the 1930s and the County Guides books follow “the People’s Professor” Swanton Morley around the UK as he writes a series of guidebooks. It is seem from the point of view of his newly recruited (at the start of book one) secretary Stephen Sefton, a veteran of the Spanish Civil War who has a slightly shady past. Also travelling with them is Morley’s daughter Miriam. Everywhere they they stumble across a body and this – and Morley’s attitude – makes them unpopular with locals and the authorities alike.

As you know I really like a historical mystery series and the 1930s are one of my real sweet spots for that. And the fact that each book moves to a different part of the country makes for a good way of varying the setting and giving opportunities for new characters to be introduced each book without expanding the core group and leaving hanging threads for the next book.

These are very much in the books where I love the premise but sometimes find the reality disappointing. This is mostly because Morley is set up as deeply irritating and at times Stephen can be too and that leaves you with no one to really root for – you share the exasperation of the locals with these annoying people who are telling them how to solve a murder! But that said, I liked them enough that I followed them through all five books in the series – even though it has taken me a while and they got harder to find.

I got the first few of these from NetGalley, a couple from the library and then bought the final one on Kindle. I have occasionally seen paperbacks in the shops – new and secondhand but I suspect at this point Kindle or Kobo will be the easiest way to get hold of these, although, neither Kindle or Kobo have managed to link the five books together as a series which is both annoying and weird because it makes it hard to give you a proper link to click and so all I can do is link you to the list of Ian Sansom ebooks and tell you that the order is: The Norfolk Mystery, Death in Devon, Westmorland Alone, Essex Poison and The Sussex Murders.

Have a great weekend everyone.

*although obviously as nothing to winter in some places, but the UK is not made for the cold.

Book of the Week, historical, mystery, new releases

Book of the Week: The Murder at World’s End

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It’s Tuesday and I’m back with this week’s Book of the Week – which is actually a book that came out last week. I’m even topical. Go me!

The year is 1910 and Haley’s Comet is passing over the earth. On a tidal island of Cornwall, a Viscount is preparing for the apocalypse. But when the staff of Tithe Hall unseal their rooms the next morning, Lord Conrad Stockingham Welt is dead in his office and a murder investigation gets underway. Straight into the police’s crosshairs is Stephen Pike, who arrived at the house fresh from Borstal the day before the murder. But Stephen knows he didn’t do it – he was looking after the elderly aunt of the victim Miss Decima Stockingham, who is foul mouthed, but very, very smart. Soon the two of them are trying to work out who did commit the murder as the policeman in charge of the case makes wild claims to try and pin it onto one of the servants.

This has got such a great premise – I love a cantankerous older woman heroine and the pairing of Miss Decima and Stephen is really entertaining and makes a great use of the above stairs-below stairs nature of the plot. And it’s really quite humorous at times too. I will admit I had the solution worked out well before they did though – but forgive them because there is world building and setting up going on here for a sequel and I am very much here for that when it happens.

My copy came from NetGalley, but it’s out now in Kindle and Kobo as well as in hardback. I’ll be watching out for it in the shops.

Happy Reading!

Book previews, historical, mystery, new releases, reviews

Out Today: A Case of Life and Limb – Bonus Review

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The first book featuring Sally Smith’s barrister and (very) reluctant detective Gabriel Ward was a BotW back in April and as the sequel is out today and I read it as soon as I could after finishing that first one, today I have a bonus review of it for you.

We rejoin Gabriel in the run up to Christmas 1901 where he is about to tackle a difficult libel case, representing an actress who says that a tabloid has impugned her reputation. But then a mummified hand is delivered to the Temple’s treasurer and Gabriel is once again pressed into service to try and find out what is happening without inviting the police into the Inner Temple. And as more body parts arrive – including one with a fatal consequence – it becomes clear that someone has got a grudge against the Inner Temple itself.

Sally Smith has come up with another twisty and intriguing mystery and has also continued to build out the world that she created in the first book. Gabriel’s world and circle continues to expand, and his cloistered and sheltered life is a great device to enable her to explain the background to things and the rules of the world without it feeling like an info dump. And Gabriel’s growing friendship with Constable Wright makes for a great unlikely duo who actually compliment each other really well.

I would have read another one of these straight away had that been an option, so the sooner Sally Smith can write a third one the better – and hopefully enough people will buy this to get in on our shelves this time next year. My copy came from NetGalley, but my paperback copy of the first book came from a bookshop so I’m hoping this one will be findable in stores too. I’ll certainly be looking out for it. And of course it’s on Kindle and Kobo too.

historical, series, Series I love

Series Update: Emmy Lake

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Happy Friday everyone! After breaking the rules on Tuesday with my book of the week, I’m back with another later in series book for this Friday’s series post, but I have a reason for this. It’s two years since the previous book in the Emmy Lake series and book four came out last week and I have read it and I wanted to report back.

So the first thing to say is that my prediction that the fourth book would arrive in 2025 was right, and the second thing is that this series is now complete! We rejoin Emmy and the gang in 1944 and by the end of Dear Miss Lake we finally reach the end of the war. In book four, Emmy and the team at Woman’s Friend are trying to find ways to keep morale up on the Home Front as the war drags on, but also starting to think about what might happen afterwards when it’s all over. Emmy’s journalistic career continues to flourish, and her husband Charles* is finally posted back in the UK. But there are still some challenges for the team to face before Victory in Europe finally arrives.

I’ve enjoyed reading this series so much, but every one of them has made me cry at some point – and this one is no exception. And without spoilers, it wasn’t (only) happy tears about the war finally ending for everyone. There is still peril in this one and it’s not insignificant peril. But it’s a book set in wartime, so it wouldn’t feel real if no one in the core group was ever in danger. I’m probably the most avoidant I’ve been of books with potential for deaths of key characters at the moment (murder mysteries don’t count) but I enjoy this series so much that I read it in the run up to release last week (thank you NetGalley for coming through on the copy for me) because I wanted to see how it ended. I’m sad it’s over, but I enjoyed it so much, and I look forward to seeing the characters that A J Pearce creates next.

As I just said, my copy was a preview copy, but it is out now in hardback and on Kindle and Kobo. You really should read the other three books first though to get the most out of it and the good news is that I’ve seen them in in shops on the regular so if you want to read them you shouldn’t have too many issues. Side note: the Audiobook for this series is read by Anna Popplewell, who was Susan in the three Chronicles of Narnia movies that came out about a decade ago.

Have a great weekend everyone!

*yes that’s a spoiler, but it happens in book 2 so what can I do?

Book of the Week, historical, mystery

Book of the Week: A Case of Mice and Murder

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I said yesterday that I’d had a really good week in reading, and I had several options for this today – but I’ve gone with this because I went straight on to the sequel (thank you NetGalley!) and I also have a plan for some of the other options, so fear not, you will hear about more of last week’s reading in due course…

In A Case of Mice and Murder it is 1901 and the calm of the Inner Temple is about to be disrupted as the body of the Lord Chancellor is discovered with a carving knife in his chest outside the chambers of Gabriel Ward KC. Ward is coerced/inveigled into investigating by the Head of the Temple, who is anxious to keep scandal – and the police – at bay as far as possible.

For those of you who aren’t aware of the eccentricities of the English legal system, the Inner Temple is one of the four Inns of Court. Along with the Middle Temple, it is situated between Fleet Street and the Embankment on the bank of the Thames, opposite the Royal Courts of Justice in Central London. The four societies (the other two are Greys Inn and Lincolns Inn) are responsible for the training, regulating and selection of barristers in England and Wales. The Middle and Inner Temple were founded by Knights Templar in the twelfth century and has special powers that mean it has operated as a special independent enclave throughout its history. This makes it a great setting for a closed community murder mystery in the middle of a city. Sally Smith is an Inner Temple KC herself and uses all her knowledge from living and working in the Inner Temple to bring the setting to life.

Gabriel is a great character too. He’s definitely a reluctant detective, but reluctant could also apply to a lot of the rest of his life. The way that the Inner Temple works has enabled him to create a life that he loves within a very small area, hedged around with routines and traditions. He’s also very solitary and keeps himself out of the politics and wrangling of the Inner Temple – because he has no desire to hold any of the leadership roles. So the discovery of the Lord Chancellor’s body disrupts this life and brings him into contact with all sorts of new things and people. One of these people is Constable Wright of the City of London Police (not to be confused with the Metropolitan Police) who is one of the police officers charged with investigating the death and the two very different men work together to figure out what happened.

I really, really enjoyed this and as I said at the top I went straight on to the sequel (which is coming out in July) and if there had been a third book I would have gone straight on to that too. I love a historical murder mystery and not only did I love the setting, I also loved the time period – it starts in May 1901, just a few months after the death of Queen Victoria at the start of the Edwardian era. There are lots of Victorian set mysteries and there are lots set in the years between the World Wars, but really not that many in the Edwardian era. So it’s a delightful change all around.

I bought this in paperback (thank you buy one, get one half price deal) but it’s also out in Kindle and Kobo. I suspect the price of this one will drop when the second one is imminent, so if you’ve already blown your book budget this month, do add it to your watch list.

Happy Reading!

books, historical, series, Series I love

Series I Love Redux: Dandy Gilver

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After reading Catriona McPherson’s new book last week, I went back and checked where I was at with the Dandy Gilver series – and lo and behold there was a sixteenth book in the series out in paperback for me to read to complete the set. It’s been three years since I last wrote about Dandy – at which point I was one down on the then fifteen books in the series. We’ve now followed Dandy’s adventures from 1923 all the way through until 1939 and seen her go from a bored wife at home with her boys away at school through to a grandmother worrying about the likelihood of her sons being killed up to fight in another war. And given that there are a bunch of throwbacks her first case in this one, it does feel like this could be the last book in the series, but who knows. I would definitely read about Dandy taking on the Home Front, but I don’t want her boys to be killed – so maybe it’s best to stop? Anyway, you can go back and read my previous posts about the series – consistently darker than you expect them to be, and with far too many different cover designs!

Have a great weekend.

Book of the Week, detective, historical, mystery, new releases, reviews

Book of the Week: The Edinburgh Murders

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I’m breaking a couple of rules this week because somewhere along the line I had managed to miss that Catriona McPherson had started a new series – and that we were on to the second book in it. But as The Edinburgh Murders came out last week I am at least timely!

Covers of The Edinburgh Murders

It’s 1948 and Helen Crowther is a welfare almoner for the newly formed NHS in Edinburgh. It’s not an easy or a popular job, and her home life isn’t simple either but she keeps on going. While she’s at the bath house with one of her clients, the body of a man is found boiled to death in one of the cubicles. And then another couple of bodies turn up and Helen finds herself investigating because she’s noticed a few things that are worryingly close to home.

This has a great setting and a cleverly put together mystery to solve. I found Helen a really interesting character, and her job gives her an excellent excuse to be sticking her nose into other people’s lives. There aren’t as many historical mystery series set in the immediate post war period as there are set in the 1930s so that make a really nice change as well as the Edinburgh setting. I’m pretty sure this will work best for you if you’ve already read the first book, but I haven’t and I still enjoyed it! Like with McPherson’s Dandy Gilver series, the mystery is darker than you often find in historical mysteries, but it’s not too graphic although there are a couple of gruesome moments its more implied than right there on the page.

My copy came via NetGalley, but it’s out now in the UK on Kindle and Kobo as well as in paperback. I couldn’t find the first one of these in the shops last week when I was looking, so I don’t know how easy the hardcover version of this is going to be to find though.

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week, cozy crime, historical, mystery

Book of the Week: Deadly Summer Nights

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Happy Tuesday everyone and today’s pick is a first in series historical cozy crime that I picked up when I was spending that Waterstones gift card before Christmas.

Our setting for Deadly Summer Nights is a holiday resort in up state New York. It’s 1953 and it’s the second season that Elizabeth has been managing Haggerman’s Catskill’s Resort. Her mother is a former actress and dancer and inherited the resort – and although she’s using her connections to book entertainment acts for the resort, it’s her daughter who is doing all the hard work on the day to day. And because it’s the 1950s and she’s a woman, not everyone is pleased about that – or prepared to listen to her. The last thing they need is a dead body at the resorts, but that’s what they’ve got. And in the dead man’s cabin the chief of police finds a copy of The Communist Manifesto and suddenly everyone is claiming that the resort is a hotbed of communists. But Elizabeth isn’t convinced and sets out to try and figure out what happened herself.

I really, really enjoyed this. The setting is fun and a bit different – even if I was really annoyed on Elizabeth’s behalf at all of these useless men who wanted to dismiss her. I do like a historical murder mystery and I haven’t read a lot that are set in mid-century America outside of a big city like New York. And the resort setting is a lot of fun whether it’s modern or historical- I’ve read Kathi Daley’s series set on a resort and I would happily read more if they appear.

This is also my first Vicki Delaney novel – although I have read one of her books under her Eva Gates pen name. There is only one other book in this series so far – and I will try and get hold of it to see what happens next. This has the start of a promising love triangle going on and I hope there’ll be clues in that about whether there will be more – Delaney seems to have a lot of series going on under her various names and I don’t know enough to know which ones are still active.

My copy came from the lovely cozy crime bookshelf in Waterstones Piccadilly, and I think it’s going to be a special order if you want the paperback version. And it’s also on Kindle and Kobo.

Happy Reading!