Barbara’s rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Series: Victorian Book Club Mystery #3
Publication Date: 1/11/22
Period: Victorian Bath, England – 1892
Number of Pages: 330

The Wedding Day! It has finally arrived and Amy and William couldn’t be happier. After the ceremony, they’ll be off to Brighton Beach for their honeymoon. Well – that was the plan anyway. The wedding went off perfectly and the wedding breakfast was going wonderfully until Alice Finch falls face-first into her plate – dead – poisoned. When the two most bumbling detectives in Bath (maybe the only two detectives in Bath) show up, William and Amy know there won’t be a honeymoon anytime soon.

Detectives Edwin Marsh and Ralph Carson do the same thing they always do – they rush to judgment and immediately arrest the person they think is the most obvious suspect. Amy isn’t so sure though and she and William start their own ‘secret’ investigation. The detectives know what they are doing and take great delight in exerting power over them. After all, William and Amy cannot leave for their honeymoon without the detectives allowing them to leave town. Poor William is frustrated beyond belief when they are repeatedly refused permission to leave.

Things go from bad to worse for William and Amy when a solicitor arranges to have Albert Finch released into their custody. It is either that or leave the man in an unforgivably awful jail, so they give in and allow it. Little do they know Amy’s loud, argumentative, demanding family is also going to descend on them – along with a thirty-year-old, Shakespeare-quoting cockatoo named Othello. Ah! Sweet William, did you ever expect your quiet, peaceful life to be turned upside down like this? Isn’t it a good thing he loves her?

“Only a few weeks ago, he had lived in this house with just himself and a staff of five. Now he had a wife, a brother-in-law, a father-in-law, an aunt, a bird, a dog, and an ever-growing staff of temporary and permanent employees. This was certainly not what he had intended when he’d proposed to Amy.”

With almost no clues – other than the obvious suspect – Amy and William find themselves running in circles – and then there is a second body. This body is discovered in their home!

There is so very much to love in this book! The wit and humor will keep you smiling even while you are commiserating with poor William who just wants to go on his honeymoon. The crimes will puzzle you – but you might think you know who committed one of the murders – but what about the other? You’ll root for Amy’s brother to get his own HEA, and you’ll take great delight at seeing Amy’s father thwarted.

I definitely recommend this book and this series. I hope you’ll give it a read and love it as much as I did.

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

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