Tag: British Mystery

Plague Doctor Murders

With The Plague Doctor Murders, the second of his Samuel Pepys Mysteries, Ellis Blackwood leaves no doubt that readers are in for an amazing series, one for which historical fiction fans will clamor.

Picking up where The Brampton Witch Murders left off, the famed diarist, the Clerk of the Acts to the Navy Board and adviser to King Charles II, for whom the series is named, along with his personal inquisitors Jacob Standish and housemaid Abigail Harcourt are on their return to London, not knowing what they would find of the ancient city that burned during their absence.

Though purportedly saved from the flames, knowledge of the state of his home and belongings would have to wait for Jacob as Pepys had another urgent mission for his inquisitors – to find out who was prowling the royal dockyards by night, dressed in the nightmarish, bird-like, plague doctor mask and cloak, threatening a colleague’s life in a similar way to a recently murdered man.

No easy task for the pair as they head to Deptford, where Jacob was known for a costly mistake he made during a brief stint as a purser’s apprentice. Likewise, young Abby must assert herself to be taken seriously by the dockworkers and be recognized by Samuel as more than just a maid or Jacob’s assistant.

Another thread of the story begins in Cornwall, following the life of a young boy whose father was believed to be kidnapped at sea. Masterfully tying the two together, Blackwood is a gifted storyteller, making 17th century London, the devastation following the Great Fire, the Thames as a workaday waterway and Cornish fishing villages all come to life.

A thrilling mystery with plenty of suspects, clues and red herrings to keep you guessing, I highly recommend The Plague Doctor Murders for fans of historical fiction, British mysteries and anyone who enjoys a fascinating story.

I can’t wait to read the next installment, The Coffee House Murders due out October 30. I also can’t wait to see, for I have no doubt, The Samuel Pepys Mysteries will appear on-screen, as well.

I received an advance reader’s copy of The Plague Doctors, courtesy of the author and Vintage Mystery Press. Order online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.

If you’re interested in learning more about Samuel Pepys and the Great Plague: Pepys’ diary entries from 1665 are woven into the narrative of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated The Great Plague by Dorothy and Lloyd Moot (for which I was privileged to host a C-Span BookTV episode)

Review by Di Prokop
More Mystery Please

Death and the Visitors – so worth the wait

Bestselling author Heather Redmond’s Death and the Visitors is the much anticipated sequel to her Mary Shelley Mystery series debut of Death and the Sisters. Now I eagerly await the third book in the series.

Once again, I loved getting to be a fly on the wall to the fictional goings on of the almost 17-year-old Frankenstein author, her months younger step-sister Jane (later known as Claire) Clairmont, acclaimed poet and Mary’s future husband Percy Bysshe Shelley.

This installment set in 1814, London where royals and diplomats have descended on the city after Napoleon’s death and in advance of the Congress of Vienna, finds the trio as they seek to find missing diamonds, solve two murders, and keep Mary’s father out of debtor’s prison.

As enthusiastic followers of Mary’s late philosopher mother Mary Wollstonecraft, members of the advance team of the Russian contingent, which included the mesmerizing Polish Princess Maria, her Russian husband and his brother, visited the family home above the bookshop.

After a lively discussion at dinner, the Russians pledged diamonds in support of Mary’s father William Godwin and stepmother’s publishing venture, the Juvenile Library. However noble the work, it was failing financially with creditors leaning hard for payment.

When Godwin, sans diamonds, learns a Russian was pulled from the Thames, Mary, Jane and Shelley must try to remove suspicion from the family and keep the moneylenders at bay.

While the light-fingered, favored daughter Jane is off at singing lessons, where she meets the romantic poet Lord Byron – the future father of her daughter, Mary’s cruel stepmother sent the cook to prison for taking a dress belonging to sister, Fanny, and had Mary play Cinderella of sorts toiling away in the kitchen.

Toss in a Scottish suitor for Mary, as well as her attempted human trafficking kidnapping, you’ll find a well rounded mystery with twists and turns that will keep you guessing, not to mention allusions to Mary’s thinking that would one day be part of her iconic work.

I highly recommend Death and the Visitors to mystery fans, historical mystery fans, poetry, science fiction and horror fans. I received this advance reader’s copy from Kensington Books, courtesy of NetGalley.

Click here to read my review of the first Mary Shelley mysteries, Death and the Sisters.
Review by Di Prokop, More Mystery Please

Order online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.

Fun book-themed cozy

Loving cozy British mysteries set in bucolic villages with the most amusing of names as I do, I couldn’t pass up the chance to read The Murders in Great Diddling by New York Times bestselling author Katarina Bivald.

Berit Gardner moved to inland Cornwall and Great Diddling to escape London, her agent and writer’s block, hoping for peace, a little intrigue and inspiration for her next novel.

A manor house tea party murder in a town with more secrets and lies than residents was all the bestselling author needed to start the wheels spinning and put her novelist powers of observation to use, not only in hopes for her next book but to solving the crime as well with a little help from her assistant/agent’s daughter, Sally, and DCI Ian Ahmed.

When the town’s tourism board decides they should capitalize on the explosive murder in Tawny Hall’s grand library with a murder and books festival, the flawed and amusing characters as suspects came out of the woodwork, along with a red herring or two for a fun cozy read.

I recommend The Murders in Great Diddling to fans of cozy book-themed British mysteries and anyone who enjoys literary-themed mysteries. I received this advanced reader copy of The Murders in Great Diddling from Poisoned Pen Press, courtesy of NetGalley.

Order online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.

Review by Di Prokop, More Mystery Please

Brilliant series debut

The Brampton Witch Murders cover
I jumped at the chance to read Ellis Blackwood’s The Brampton Witch Murders, A Samuel Pepys Mystery, and I’m so glad I did.

In a brilliant series debut, we find the famed diarist’s personal inquisitors, Abigail Harcourt and Jacob Standish, tasked with proving the innocence of Samuel’s younger sister, Paulina Pepys, accused as a witch by the son of the late Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins.

My excitement never waned as the book is perfectly paced, plotted, and artfully set. Blackwood does an amazing job painting the world of 1666 England, where the flames of what would become the Great Fire of London had just ignited the bakery on Pudding Street, in the city that just the year before had been besieged by plague.

For a setting almost 400 years ago, Blackwood’s narrative flows naturally, his detailed description is subtle, never forced. With his richly drawn characters, supporting and otherwise, their back-stories and humor, it was a most enjoyable read, not to mention a satisfying mystery with clues and suspects aplenty.

I especially loved getting to know housemaid turned inquisitor Abigail, her cleverness, strength and determination in finding the truth and seeing justice done despite it not being given to her family, years earlier.

I highly recommend The Brampton Witch Murders for anyone interested in puritan-era witch trials, historical fiction readers, as well as fans of cozy mysteries. I can’t wait to see what Blackwood has in store for us in future installments of the series to be published in the coming months.

I received this advanced reader copy of The Brampton Witch Murders from Vintage Mystery Press, courtesy of the author. Order online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.

Note: Having been a bit familiar with Pepys, his diary entries from 1665 woven into the narrative of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated The Great Plague by Dorothy and Lloyd Moot (for which I was privileged to host a C-Span BookTV episode) I was quite intrigued to read mysteries inspired by the diarist and bon vivant. After finishing The Brampton Witch Murders, I found myself going down a rabbit hole of sorts, trying to learn whether characters were real or fictional. In my queries, I was delighted to find that not only The Diary of Samuel Pepys is available online but the self-appointed Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins’ The Discovery of Witches, as well.

Review by Di Prokop, More Mystery Please

Fun beach read

Anyone who has ever read a British mystery or watched one on-screen knows that if there is a festival, a village fete or a jumble sale for that matter, a body is bound to turn up. Fiona Leitch’s The Cornish Campsite Murder, the sixth installment of her Nosey Parker Mysteries, is no exception.

Former Met police detective Jodie Parker and her betrothed, DI Nathan Withers, are helping out a friend, manning a Cornish pie van called Pie Hard for a camp-out weekend music festival, just down the coast from her home in the fictional Penstowan.

I liked Jodie from the start — her sense of humor, her family and her detective’s curiosity. In The Cornish Campsite Murder, a body of a former lead band member of one of Jodie’s favorites is found by the beach and her teen idol is one of the prime suspects.

I could relate to the universal feeling of actually getting to meet/speak to your teen idol and fearing they won’t live up to your expectations or if they do, that you’ll make a fool of yourself. But what if they are murderers or you falsely accuse them, ruin their reputation and they hate you? That’s the dilemma in which Jodie finds herself.

Fiona Leitch offers a humorous mystery with some fun twists, a host of colorful characters and a satisfying ending. What more could you ask for in a summer read? How about a recipe for a leek and sausage pie at the end of the book? (Having enjoyed a leek and potato pasty on a train ride from Cornwall to London, the Pie Hard’s Die Hard-themed pies sounded both delicious and a little adventuresome. I can’t wait to return for another authentic Cornish pie.)

I highly recommend The Cornish Campsite Murder for British cozy mystery fans, humorous mystery fans and beach readers. This one fits the bill for all of the above.

I received this advanced reader copy of The Cornish Campsite Murder from One More Chapter, an imprint of Harper Collins UK, courtesy of NetGalley.

Order online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.

Review by Di Prokop, More Mystery Please

Cryptic Phrase Sets Tone for Murder at Land’s End

Cornwall is one of my most favorite places on Earth, so I was thrilled to get the chance to read Murder at Land’s End by Sally Rigby.

In this the third book of the series, Detective Inspector Lauren Pengelly and Detective Sergeant Matt Price lead the investigation into the murder of a young woman, whose body was found on the rocks off the coast of Lands End, the western most point in Cornwall and the most southwesterly point on the British mainland.

As I hadn’t read the previous installments of the series, I was amused to read that Price, a young widower relatively new to the Penzance police station, has an aversion to dead bodies. I imagined it presenting itself much the way the blood aversion affects Doc Martin, in the series by the same name, set in Port Wenn (actually Port Isaac), also in Cornwall. However, his voice in my head sounded more like Ralf Little, who portrays DI Neville Parker in Death in Paradise.

The cryptic phrase, “Men must work and women must weep,” was found on a piece of paper in the victim’s mouth. While it took me only seconds with a Google search to learn that the phrase was taken from The Three Fishers, a poem by Charles Kingsley, Pengelly put a member of her team into investigating its meaning, making it seem a little unrealistic to me.

I enjoyed the premise, the setting and the characters but the story, however, didn’t quite hit the mark for me. Even with the discovery of a second body, more suspects, a tricky family crisis for Pengelly, the overdone narration and not enough of a twist at the end, left me feeling like there was something missing. I so wanted to love Murder at Land’s End.

I received this advanced reader copy of Murder at Land’s End from Storm Publishing, courtesy of NetGalley. Order online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.

Gritty noir delivers compelling layered mystery

While Robbie Morrison’s Edge of the Grave more-than-gritty prologue stopped me in my tracks – actually putting the book down for a day or two wondering for what I was in store, the subsequent slow build took me a bit to get through with flashbacks but once I got my bearings, it led to a dark but fantastically layered historical noir mystery with interesting characters you care about and want to read more of in future installments.

The Bloody Scotland Debut Crime Novel of the Year award-winner, Edge of the Grave is set in 1932 Glasgow, where poverty, corruption, sectarianism and razor gangs are rampant and where the violence against man, woman or child could be horrific. Family secrets ran just as dark and deep.

Among other crimes, Detective Inspector Jimmy Dreghorn and Detective Sergeant “Bonnie” Archie McDaid set out to solve the murder of Charles Geddes, the husband of Dreghorn’s unrequited love – well maybe requited in his youth – daughter of his former boss, a rich and powerful shipbuilder.

I loved the relationship between Jimmy and Archie and the strengths and weaknesses each brought to the story. I also was happy to see Jimmy support the role of WPC Ellen Duncan actively investigating the case and not just fetching male officers a cuppa.

I also enjoyed Morrison’s movie references throughout and wondered whether or not Dreghorn’s film knowledge would lead to the recognition of a clue. Perhaps in the next installment, Cast a Cold Eye, due out in April.

I recommend Edge of the Grave to fans of gritty historical mysteries and British noir. I received this Advance Reader’s copy of Edge of the Grave from Bantam Books, courtesy of NetGalley.

Order online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.

Locked room Murder on the Christmas Express

Murder on the Christmas Express cover on desk with magnifying glass, antique typewriter, telephone, radio
Murder on the Christmas Express takes newly retired Met Detective Roz Parker on a first-class sleeper car trip – a parting gift from her colleagues – as she makes her way home to the Scottish Highlands for the holidays and the impending premature birth of her granddaughter.

Several references to the is Die Hard really a Christmas movie debate among a group of university students en route to try out for a reality quiz show was among the first clues that this wasn’t a cozy yuletide mystery.

Alexandra Benedict, author of The Christmas Murder Game, still embeds Christmas-related anagrams and quizzes into her well-plotted puzzle where the protagonist comes to terms with the death of her mother.

There is also a crippling snowstorm but this time, however, Benedict offers us an emotional locked room mystery that has our detective flashbacking to some of her own trauma, while trying to solve one last case, as the reader soon discovers that the dead aren’t the only victims.

Eighteen passengers and a cat board the train in London – some known to each other, some not. You’ll have to read for yourself to discover how many will live to disembark under their own power.

I recommend Murder on the Christmas Express for mystery lovers, puzzle lovers and readers of non-traditional holiday-themed novels.

I received this Advance Reader’s copy of Murder on the Christmas Express from Poisoned Pen Press, an imprint of Sourcebooks, courtesy of NetGalley.

Order online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.

Pre-Frankenstein murder mystery for Mary Shelley


From the moment I heard about this book, I knew I had to read Heather Redmond’s Death and the Sisters, a Mary Shelley Mystery. (Yes, that Mary Shelley.) I’m so glad I did.

We first meet the 16-year-old future Frankenstein author and her also 16-year-old stepsister Jane after Mary trades a story in exchange for her 20-year-old half-sister Fanny’s hemming of her shift.  I was hooked.

The following evening Percy Bysshe Shelley comes to dinner in the family’s rooms above their bookshop across the street from Newgate Prison, where Mary’s father hopes to persuade Shelley to pledge his financial support to his publishing enterprise. While the sisters are all smitten with the dashing looks of the young, albeit married, radical poet, Mary appreciated his mind the most.  Mary Shelley, her sisters, Percy Bysshe Shelley and a bookshop…even better.

After their guest has left and the family has retired for the night, Mary heads down to the bookshop in search of research for a ghost story idea. There in the dark shop, she discovers an open door and a dead body just before Jane arrives on the scene. Mary Shelley, sister Jane, Percy Bysshe Shelley, a bookshop and murder. And that’s just in the first eighteen pages!

While this marks the trio’s first fictional adventure, in reality the three shared a lifetime of them together.
Heather Redmond, who has also written the Dickens of a Crime series, has done a phenomenal job dropping possible Frankenstein inspirations for Mary and interspersing lines from classic works throughout the captivating plot. This is the first in Redmond’s Mary Shelley series. I can’t wait to read the next one and will be sure to check out her Dickens, as well.

I highly recommend Death and the Sisters to mystery fans, historical mystery fans, poetry, science fiction and horror fans. I received this advance reader’s copy from Kensington Books, courtesy of NetGalley.

Order online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.

I love Agatha Raisin!

Handwritten review of Dead on Target on desk next to antique typewriter, phone and clock radio
Be sure to check out my Instagram reel for a humorous attempt at reading my review on the beach.

The hawk-eyed, sharp-tongued, insatiably curious and colorfully coutured Agatha Raisin and her entourage of friends and lovers—past and present—are back.

In Dead on Target, the London P.R. exec turned Cotswold Private Eye is investigating the murder of Sir Godfrey Pride, a lecherous landowner, whose body Agatha discovered with his pants down and an arrow through his chest, during one of those deadly English village fetes that cozy mystery fans read so much about.

Now fools Agatha doesn’t suffer wisely and that includes Carsely’s Detective Chief Inspector Wilkes, who believes our heroine is the prime suspect when in reality, she could just be the next victim.

Throw in a gangster, counterfeit merch, ballroom dancing and Agatha in God forbid a Mirchester United Hoodie and track suit and Agatha Raisin and cozy mystery fans are in for a treat – a few laughs, a twisty plot and a satisfying ending.

R.W. Green has done an outstanding job of not only capturing the essence of Agatha’s character but also her cohorts and the village of Carsely that the late M.C. Beaton created 34 books ago. Don’t skip the foreword!

I highly recommend Dead on Target for all M.C. Beaton/Agatha Raisin fans and lovers of cozy lighthearted, humorous mysteries. I received this advance reader copy from Minotaur Books, courtesy of NetGalley.

Order online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.

Powered by WordPress.com.

Up ↑