Category: Barb’s Reviews

The Fatal Flying Affair by T.E. Kinsey

On By BarbaraIn Barb's Reviews, George V - 1910- 1936, Historical Mystery, Yearly FavoritesLeave a comment

The Fatal Flying Affair (A Lady Hardcastle Mystery #7)
Barbara’s rating: 5 of 5 stars

Series: Lady Hardcastle Mysteries #7
Publication Date: 12/3/20
Number of Pages: 316

OH! This was a delightful author and series to find. Coming into the series with book seven only made me want to go back and discover the delights of the first six books. I don’t think I’ve enjoyed a read this much in a long time. The mystery is realistic, the writing is excellent, the prose is witty, the story is excellently paced, and the characters are all wonderful. How have I missed this series? I, who insists on a bit of romance in my mysteries, didn’t even miss it in this book. Go figure! Just as an FYI to the other miscreants out there who have also missed this series – this book can easily be read as a standalone. References are made to former cases and people, but not in such a way that you feel you are lacking some knowledge.

For those of you who are familiar with this series, you might want to skip this paragraph because it is about my take on who Lady Emily Hardcastle and Florence Armstrong are and what they do. My take may not be totally correct because it is mostly from suppositions based on some of the things mentioned in this book. However, I’ll know all once I manage the time to go back and read the earlier stories. Lady Hardcastle has been a widow for something like thirteen years. Florence has worked for Lady Hardcastle for something like seventeen years. Officially, Florence is Emily’s lady’s maid, but that is just to explain Florence’s presence at various functions. Florence is really Emily’s friend and partner in their work for the Crown. Both ladies have spent years working for the Crown and they are exceedingly skilled at what they do – and who – in that time period – would ever suspect a Lady and her maid of being agents for the Crown? They’ve been retired for the last three years and living in Littleton Cotterell in Gloucestershire – near Bristol.

Lady H and Flo have enjoyed their retirement and country living, but when Lady H’s brother Harry, who works for the Secret Service, approaches the indomitable pair about returning to active service, they quickly agree. It seems that something just isn’t right at the Bristol Aviation and Aeronautics Company. Harry’s organization has determined that someone is leaking design information to foreign agents, and a gifted young engineer was killed in a testing accident. That accident might not have been an accident. Harry needs Emily and Flo to figure out what is going on at the company, Identify the leaker, and to determine if the young engineer was murdered.

With political tensions already making themselves felt in 1911, everyone is fearful of an approaching war. Even those who aren’t ‘in the know’ about what is actually happening are feeling the tensions mounting. Emily and Flo know more than most – especially with Harry filling them in – so they embark on their new investigation determined to find who is betraying England to foreign powers.

I absolutely adore the banter between Harry, Emily, and Flo. They are all well-suited and can always make a very tense situation less tense with their humor and wit. I adore how absolutely talented the two ladies are – and how they thoroughly enjoy pulling the wool over people’s eyes. Those people, especially males, tend to discount two females, especially a Lady and her tiny little lady’s maid. They discount Flo and Emily at their own peril!

This is a delightful read with a great mystery (or two or three or …) and such delightful characters that you will love them all. I definitely recommend the book.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Angel by L.J. Ross

On By BarbaraIn Barb's Reviews, Contemporary, MysteryLeave a comment

Angel (DCI Ryan Mysteries, #4)My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Series: DCI Ryan Mysteries #4
Publication Date: 8/26/16
Number of Pages: 231

After their last case, DCI Ryan and his team are the stars of the show around Northumberland. The public is fickle though and when it becomes apparent there is a serial killer among them, they start demanding a quick solution. In this fast-paced, page-turning, can’t-put-it-down book, you’ll chase down the clues and put them together to find an unexpected and twisted villain at work.

In the early morning hours of a foggy, dreary, Good Friday in Newcastle upon Tyne, city gravedigger, Keith Wilson, drove his mini-digger machine into the West Road Cemetery. It might be a Bank Holiday, but death doesn’t wait for holidays. When he gets to the spot assigned for him to dig the grave, it appears to have already have a fresh burial. After checking with his dispatch and finding out he’s definitely at the correct spot, he looks at the grave and sees – OMGoodness, he sees a single dead eye, peering sightlessly at him through the soil.

DCI Ryan is at home with his fiancé Dr. Anna Taylor. The floor is strewn with wedding magazines. He loves her to distraction, but he just wants to get married, he doesn’t care what she chooses. So, when his mobile phone rings, and it flashes Control Room as the caller, he gleefully tells her – WORK!

The victim is a lovely red-haired lady in her early thirties who had been strangled. There is nothing to identify her, but she is posed to look like an Angel with arms overhead and blouse torn and spread to look like wings. Her burial site also included a note saying: Et ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. To Ryan’s surprise, DS Phillips recognizes that as being what a priest says when he is absolving the dead of their sins: ‘I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’. What sins did the murderer think this lovely young woman had committed?

Ryan’s team also catches another case, and since the two cases aren’t related, he assigns it to DI Denise MacKenzie and DC Jack Lowerson. MacKenzie and Lowerson step into a gruesome scene. The badly decomposed body of a sixty-five-year-old woman, lying on the floor of her home. She’s not a well-liked woman, so nobody notices that she hasn’t been seen for a week. It looks like they have their work cut out for them just to get a timeline for when she was last seen.

Ryan and Phillips feel the urgency to solve the case as the bodies of other red-headed, early-thirties, women are found in graves awaiting burials for other people. Who is killing these ladies? What sins have they committed for which they need absolution? Why are they posed as angels?

It takes all of Ryan’s team to finally identify and apprehend this twisted murderer. I figured out who it was early on, but there are lots of red-herrings and twists-and-turns to throw you off and make you doubt your suppositions.

I listened to the audiobook and thoroughly enjoyed the performance of the narrator.  I like his voice, but he does seem to have a narrower range of voices and it is often difficult to tell which character is speaking.