Category: Historical Mystery

Murder Most Fair by Anna Lee Huber

On By BarbaraIn Barb's Reviews, Historical Mystery, Interwar Period (Nov 1918 - Sep 1939), Top Pick - Highly RecommendedLeave a comment

Murder Most Fair (Verity Kent #5)Murder Most Fair by Anna Lee Huber
Barbara’s rating: 5 of 5 stars

Series: Verity Kent Mysteries #5
Publication Date: 8/31/21
Period: England, Intra-War Period, 1919
Number of Pages: 384

OMGoodness! This series just keeps getting better and better. This author’s prose takes you from your comfortable chair and plops you down in post-WWI England with her gripping descriptions. It is November of 1919 and the country is still trying to recover – to come to terms with the debilitating, gut-wrenching grief from which they all still suffer. Everyone copes with that grief in different ways, but one way that seems the most common is to carry an all-consuming hatred of anything and anyone German.

With the Christmas holidays nearing, Verity and Sidney are planning a trip to Verity’s home near Yorkshire. Verity hasn’t visited there in five years – at first, it was the war and her responsibilities that kept her away – then, after her brother Rob was killed-in-action, she couldn’t face all of the memories of him. Now, it is time to face the grief she has buried deep, deep inside herself and she’s not looking forward to it. She can handle it for a couple of weeks though – surely.

One of Verity’s missions for the Home Office comes back to haunt her when her great aunt, Tante Ilse, gets permission to come to England from Germany. Verity dearly loves Tante Ilse and was loath to involve her in a mission during the war, but had little choice in the matter. Verity needed to get a collaborator back inside Germany, so they used Tante Ilse’s home as a safehouse during the journey. With the anti-German sentiment so strong in England, Verity and Sidney decide Tante Ilse and her maid would be much safer in the rural Yorkshire Downs, so they decide to travel to Verity’s home earlier than planned.

Verity has been noticing that something just isn’t right. Tante Ilse isn’t telling her everything and she’s noticed the maid being accosted. She’s also caught several glimpses of a man she is sure she recognizes, but cannot put a name to. Is Ardmore, the overarching enemy of the series up to something again? Or, is this much closer to home?

Even in rural Yorkshire anti-German sentiments are very strong and local authorities don’t take it particularly seriously when Tante Ilse’s young, beautiful, German maid is found dead in a remote barn. Sidney and Verity know they will have to solve the murder themselves if they want to see justice done for the young woman. There are suspects aplenty, it is just a matter of weeding through them.

Verity has so much to handle – a murder, deep grief, and a family festering with what they view as her abandonment of them. Can her emotions survive it all? She and Sidney can handle the murder investigation together – no problem. Her family and grief are something she has to manage on her own – with Sidney’s support – but she is still the one who has to deal with it. Because of the Secrets Act, she absolutely cannot tell her family what she did during the war. Yet, without telling them the truth, they’ll continue to believe she abandoned them to drink and party in London while they were grieving at home. Besides the grief, her two remaining brothers both have issues from serving during the war – the things they saw – the things they did… Like most of the other returning veterans, they brought those experiences home with them and those experiences taint everything they do in life.

I absolutely loved the way this author made me feel the emotions of the characters. My heart ached for Verity and her inability to let her brother Rob go. The descriptions of the deprivations, the tensions, the terror – both in Germany and England – made you feel all of it yourself.

I hope you will read and love this outstanding historical mystery as much as I did. You cannot get better writing, better storytelling, better emotion, better more compelling characters anywhere. It is a wonderful series and I highly recommend all of the books.

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

View all my reviews

The Merchant and The Rogue by Sarah M. Eden

On By TracyIn Historical Mystery, Mystery, Tracy's Reviews, Victorian Era (1837-1901)Leave a comment

The Merchant and the Rogue (The Dread Penny Society #3)The Merchant and the Rogue by Sarah M. Eden

Tracy’s rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Series: The Dread Penny Society, #3

Release Date: August 17, 2021

Brogan Donnelly has been summoned by the acting head of the Dread Penny Society – a secret group of “penny dreadful” authors in London who work together as vigilantes to combat crime and help the less fortunate. Brogan loves being a member but has struggled with the rule that he must keep his membership and activities secret, which means lying to his sister Moirin. When Brogan arrives at his meeting, he is shocked to learn that the Dread Master, the actual yet unknown leader of the group, was the one who summoned him. The Dread Master wants Brogan to take a mission, but it will require him to act alone and without the DPS’s help, furthermore, he will have to “resign” from the group. His mission is to learn what connection the Russian ambassador has to the group’s archenemy – The Mastiff and his henchman Four-Finger Mike and to an immigrant Russian printer in Soho. Brogan accepts the mission, but doesn’t feel up to the task and is unhappy about the lies he will have to tell his co-members. As luck would have it when Brogan goes to the printer’s shop, they are looking for help and he applies for the job, which will hopefully allow him to find out what the printer is up to and how it relates to the ambassador.

Vera Sorokina runs The Sorokin Print Shop with her father. Although she was born in Russia, her family fled when she was young and England is the only home she has ever known. She runs the shop which not only does printing, but sells supplies and much to her father’s disgust – Penny Dreadful novels. Her father hates authors, he blames them for his banishment from Russia, a hatred that he has instilled in Vera. So when Brogan applies for the job, he gives a fake name – Ganor O’Donnell. Vera hires him and immediately feels a connection. Ganor and Vera become friends, they discuss the Penny Dreadfuls, politics, and life as immigrants – her feeling for him grow, how can then not when he buys her roast chestnuts, it kind to the urchins she “hires”, and when an extortion scheme comes into play, he supports her efforts to unite the other shop owners.

Brogan is falling hard for Vera and hates the lies that stand between them, he needs to finish his mission and then hopefully find a way to reveal the truth to Vera without breaking the DPS rules and hope that she will forgive his deception. But when someone tells her who he really is, she is hurt and cuts their ties without revealing she has learned the truth. Although heartbroken, her decision to send him away actually leads to him finding the connection between her father and the ambassador that he was sent to find. He takes the evidence and leaves but is not ready to give up on a future with Vera. He just needs to solve this mystery and then find a way to win back the woman he loves…

This was a very interesting story, it was actually three stories in one, as two “Penny Dreadful” novels are interspersed throughout the book. The writing was good, but I did find the addition of the other novels a bit distracting and their placement at times broke the “flow” of the actual story. Also, the book ends a bit abruptly and I would have liked a bit more closure, but I have to assume the things left hanging will be addressed in future installments. What I did like was the connection between Vera and Brogan, it was very well done and I truly felt and believed their love connection, the mysteries were also nicely executed and the author did a great job of tying everything together for a grand climax. For readers who prefer a “no-contact” romance – this book is for you, there is nothing beyond a kiss in this story and while I usually prefer a bit more steam, I didn’t feel the lack in this book. This is the third book in the series, but I hadn’t read the previous books and had no problems starting mid-series.

*I am voluntarily leaving a review for an eARC that I requested and was provided to me by the publisher. All opinions in this review are my own.*