October 20, 2014
Like Downton Abbey, this fun, well-crafted standalone by British author Eccles (A Dangerous Deceit) sets a wealthy family in a world of social change. In the summer of 1911, London faces a new monarch, suffrage demonstrations, and violent political activism. Eighteen-year-old Kitty Challoner is preparing for her introduction to London society when her Russian-born mother, Lydia, is fatally shot while horseback riding in Hyde Park. As Kitty grieves, she discovers that her father’s gun is missing, a precious icon has vanished, and a sketch of a wolf has mysteriously appeared in the lacquer box, decorated with a firebird, which her mother cherished. Lydia’s conflicts with suffragette leaders, close relationship with a handsome younger man, and possible support for London’s anarchist underground give the police ample leads. As Lydia’s hidden life is revealed, Kitty comes of age in a sobering but satisfying fashion. Well-drawn characters, inventive plotting, and a touch of romance distinguish this lively historical.
November 1, 2014
An Edwardian family's quiet life is shattered by murder. It is 1911. A new king awaits the crown in London, suffragettes are fighting for the right to vote, and Russian refugees are raising money for a revolution. In the Challoner household, daughter Kitty is preparing to be introduced to society while her older cousin Bridget secretly helps the suffragettes as she awaits entry to Cambridge. Kitty's beautiful Russian-born mama, Lydia, is riding in the park with her constant escort, Marcus Villiers, when she's shot dead from a distance. There was much more to Lydia than the pampered society matron she appeared to be. Assisted by her secretary, Hester Drax, Lydia, under a nom de plume, was a published author, and she was deeply interested in her Russian background even though she and her father had escaped when she was very young. DCI Gaines and DS Inskip have their work cut out for them, but as always, they suspect the husband. Louis Challoner becomes a subject of particular interest when his pistol goes missing from the safe where he keeps it. A recent shootout between Russian revolutionaries and the law makes the police especially interested in Lydia's Russian connections. Marcus admits he was keeping an eye on Lydia at the request of the government but maintains that Kitty's the one he loves. Kitty's sleuthing forces both her father and Miss Drax to make unwilling revelations. Which of the secrets in Lydia's own life caused her death? Eccles (After Clare, 2012, etc.) once again combines history and romance with a clever mystery filled with a wide array of suspects.
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September 15, 2016
Eccles' latest historical mystery is set in London in 1912, when tensions were high between those who favored the Irish Home Rule bill and those who strongly opposed Irish independence. Edmund Latimer, a cabinet minister, is in the thick of the debate, so he has little time to worry about his wife, Alice, who is caught up in her own life, being a practicing physician who loves her work and doesn't mind that Edmund is away much of the time. But tragedy strikes when the Latimer's infant niece, Lucy, is kidnapped. In what seems a totally unrelated case, DI Gaines and DS Inskip of Scotland Yard are investigating the murder of an unidentified man knifed in a taxi. But that case goes on the back burner when the coppers are assigned to Lucy's kidnapping. As they investigate, they begin to suspect the kidnapping may be linked to Latimer's political views. Eccles captures the ambience of early twentieth-century London and offers a whodunit full of intrigue, unexpected twists, colorful characters, and a surprising conclusion.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)
August 1, 2017
DI Bert Reardon and his wife, Ellen, have just moved to the village of Folbury, where Bert will become head of detectives in the police department's newly formed detective squad, and Ellen will teach French at the prestigious Maxstead Court School for Girls. But on Ellen's first day at the school, a badly decomposed body is discovered. The body is that of the former French teacher, Isabelle Blanchard, who suddenly left the school six weeks earlier and whose place Ellen is taking. Knowing that this case will be crucial to his success in his new job, Bert is frustrated when the investigation hits a series of dead ends. Set in 1930s England, this latest in Eccles entertaining historical mystery series (following Heirs and Assigns, 2014) combines nicely rendered period detail along with a complex murder and a completely unexpected ending.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)
July 3, 2017
In Eccles’s entertaining fourth 1930s mystery featuring Det. Insp. Herbert Reardon (after 2015’s Heirs and Assigns), Ellen Reardon, Herbert’s wife, is fortunate enough to be hired to replace the French teacher, who’s disappeared, at the newly founded Maxstead Court School for Girls, located near the English town of Folbury. During a tour of the school grounds, Ellen notices something odd amid the rubble of a partially demolished building. It turns out to be the decomposing body of Mademoiselle Isabelle Blanchard, the missing French teacher. Reardon arrives and meets with the school’s brisk and efficient headmistress, Edith Hillyard, who fought for women’s rights and drove ambulances on the front line in France during the Great War. As he questions the school’s teachers and pupils, he begins to sense that a dark and dangerous undercurrent lies below Maxstead’s seemingly placid surface. The clues are clearly presented, but the ending will still come as a surprise.
July 15, 2017
DI Herbert Reardon is drawn into the insular world of a girls' boarding school in the second of this period series (Heirs and Assigns, 2015).It's 1930. All over Britain, crumbling aristocratic estates are being converted to institutions, and Maxstead Court is no different. It's now a respectable boarding school for girls, and Ellen Reardon is very pleased to join it and the working world she had to leave when she got married, teaching French under clever headmistress Edith Hillyard. But the school's bright future takes an ugly turn when the previous French teacher, Isabelle Blanchard, turns up dead among the renovations. Ellen's workplace becomes her husband's crime scene, as DI Reardon examines the building site and questions the students and staff. No one seems to know anything about Mademoiselle Blanchard's past; the one person who might have anything to tell, the French teacher she replaced, has vanished. Meanwhile, the girls are immersed in their own private schemes, and Miss Hillyard is uncommonly silent about the source of the school's funds. When one of the girls goes missing and is found locked in a room of the old, decaying wing of Maxstead Court, she won't say who put her there, and when one of the mistresses is shoved in the lake, she insists she merely slipped. Whose secrets are they keeping? Thoroughly feminine and insinuatingly Gothic, reminiscent of du Maurier's Rebecca: an atmospheric take on well-worn tropes.
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