Sick of Shadows - Marion Chesney

Lady Rose Summer couldn’t be more delighted to assist Society’s most beautiful new debutante Miss Dolly Tremaine in negotiating her very first Season. Now engaged to Captain Harry Cathcart in order to avoid being shipped off to India, Rose is desperate to do something more useful than attend endless balls and parties. And the country-bred Dolly was totally at sea—and needed all the help Rose could give. But when Rose rushes to prevent Dolly from making a disastrous mistake, she discovers her stabbed to death and floating in a boat on the Serpentine River. And it isn’t long before Rose barely survives an attempt on her own life. Now, Rose and Harry’s race to uncover the secrets of Dolly’s life is stirring up a hornet’s nest of deceptions and devilish schemes from London’s most exclusive townhouses to the seemingly-peaceful Yorkshire coast. And a cunning murderer is only a breath away from burying the truth—and the persistent Lady Rose—with one devastating stroke...

I had a lot of fun reading this third entry in Marion Chesney's Edwardian Mystery series. Like in the previous books the mystery is actually only part of the charm as the story also deals with the relationship between the main characters - Lady Rose Summer and Captain Harry Cathcart - whose misunderstandings and continuous banter always brings a smile to my face, the situation of women, the contrast between the living conditions of the upper and lower orders as with several other aspects of the Edwardian society.

Although this is a mystery I think the main thing here is Rose and Harry's relationship and how Rose is growing from a naive young lady to someone with more substance. Rose and Harry planned a fake engagement to prevent her from being shipped to India by her parents. However Harry is very involved in his detective work and more often than not can't escort Rose to the social functions her family is invited to. This leads to much gossip and to Rose and her parent’s distress.

Regarding the mystery in this story Rose befriends a young woman who is found murdered a few days later. Rose is the one who discovers the body and soon after there's an attempt on her life as the killer(s) seems to believe she knows more than she actually does. Her family decides she must go away to a secret location in the country with only her companion and Inspector Kerridge suggests they go to a family he knows where Rose starts by being a bit of a spoiled brat but ends up doing some growing up.

The best part of the story for me is the relationship between the characters and Chesney funny humor. Especially Rose and Harry's on-again, off again engagement and their many misunderstandings but also their dealings with Daisy and Beckett and everyone else around them. Rose is bored an unhappy without Harry in attendance but he doesn't seem to understand that all would be solved by giving her more of his attention (which deep down he would really like to). While I much enjoyed their banter and misconceptions about each other I hope Chesney doesn't keep them like this in future books, they make up in the end so hopefully they'll stay that way in the next book.

This is a light and fun series that gives you an insight on the Edwardian period and while being labeled as cosy mysteries there's no doubt that the characters and their involvement with each other takes center stage and the mystery is kept as a secondary thing. I can't wait to get to the next one!

Grade: 4/5

Hasty Death by Marion Chesney

Eager to join the working classes, Lady Rose Summer has abandoned the comforts of her parents' home to become self-supporting. But life as a working woman isn't quite what Rose had imagined---long hours as a typist and nights spent in a dreary women's hostel are not very empowering when you're poor, cold, and tired. Luckily for Rose, her drudgery comes to a merciful end when she learns of
the untimely death of an acquaintance.Freddy Pomfret, a silly and vacuous young man, was almost certainly up to no good before he was shot dead in his London flat. When Rose discovers incriminating evidence pointing to several members of her class, she returns to London high society in order to investigate properly.
With the help of Captain Harry Cathcart and Superintendent Kerridge of Scotland
Yard, Rose prepares to do the social rounds---uncovering a devious blackmail
plot and an unexpected killer.

Another Edwardian murder mystery this is the second instalment in the series about the adventures of Lady Rose Summer and Captain Harry Cathcart.

After the end of book one where we met them and they solved a murder, it seems Lady Rose has some tender feelings for Captain Harry and wouldn’t be averse to a match between them. Unfortunately Captain Harry seems clueless and is ready to go on as a private investigator without Lady Rose.

Lady Rose is your usually spoiled debutante but you can’t help finding her funny and her attempts to lead a normal life. She decides to be a working girl, and, with some discreet help from Harry, manages to find employment in a bank with her companion and friend Daisy. One can’t help but shudder at the difficult like working women faced at the time having to live in hotels and in deficient conditions. Not what Lady Rose is used to so she quickly goes back to her parents and continues to drive them mad with not wanting to marry.

The mystery plot is not very strong and maybe that’s why I was more interested in Rose and Harry’s adventures than in finding out who murder a young gentleman who could have been blackmailing a number of people. But Rose and Harry soon turn their attentions to catching the killer and I followed along with them.

Parts of the book are actually quite funny, with Rose realising that working girls didn’t have an easier life as she thought or with Harry’s secretary falling for him, so that actually compensated for the fact that I wasn’t that interested in the mystery. By the end of the book Rose is nowhere near marriage but she and Harry devise a plan when her parents threaten to take her to India in search of a husband. They’ll pretend they’re engaged and that will leave Rose with more freedom for a while till they decide to part ways and she jilts him. I can’t wait for the next book to see how they are going to pull that one off.

Although the characters are very atypical I think Chesney can give a decent enough feel of the period in a light charming way.


Grade: 4/5

Snobbery With Violence - Marion Chesney

When a marriage proposal appears imminent for the beautiful - if rebellious - Lady Rose Summer, her father wants to know if her suitor's intentions are honorable. He calls on Captain Harry Cathcart, the impoverished younger son of a baron, to do some intelligence work on the would-be fiance, Sir Geoffrey Blandon.After his success in uncovering Geoffrey's dishonorable motives, Harry fashions a career out of "fixing" things for wealthy aristocrats. So when the Marquess of Hedley finds one of his guests dead at a lavish house party, he knows just the man to call.But when Harry is caught between his client's desire
for discretion and his suspicion that murder may indeed have been committed, he enlists the help of Superintendent Kerridge of the Scotland Yard and Lady Rose, also a guest at Lord Hedley's.

I really do enjoy cosy mysteries and I prefer historical to contemporary so it was with great expectation that I started this Snobbery with Violence, an Edwardian murder mystery.

I must say that I enjoyed it very much and I almost laughed aloud at times. Lady Rose Summer was almost unbelievable at times, as she was much focused in the women's rights movement and the equality of rights between the lower and upper classes but at the same time, she seemed unaware of the proper behaviour to live in polite society and without proper knowledge of what being of the lower classes might entail.

The story starts with Lady Rose being pursued by a gentleman who is taking its time with the marriage proposal, Lady Rose's father hires Captain Cathcart to discover which are the man's intentions and unfortunately those were less than honourable. I understand Rose's anger at him and wanting to shame him publicly but it seemed odd that she did not know the double standard would actually make her an outcast while his sins would be quickly forgotten.

Rose and Captain Harry meet again when he is hired once more by her father to stop a visit from the king to their estate. It has come to the Earl's attention that the king wants to try his luck with Rose now that she is a fallen woman. Harry comes up with the idea of blowing up a bridge on the estate and blaming it on the bolshevists, which effectively scares the royal guest to be.

Due to her reputation, Rose is then invited to a house party on a strange fake castle where Lord Hedley has decided to gather those girls whose season was a failure and helping them find husbands. Not that Rose wants a husband of course. And here is where the mystery really starts. One the guest is found dead of what seems to be arsenic poisoning and the police are called to investigate but progresses little as the influences of the upper classes manage to call off the inquest. Rose immediately decides she must investigate and since Harry had been invited by Lord Hedley to try to solve the investigation discreetly there is nothing more obvious than bringing those two together.

This is a light and fun read and I think Chesney strong point is the characters she creates. Becket, who is Harry's man, and Daisy, a former chorus girl who becomes Rose's lady's maid are interesting characters and so is Inspector Kerridge. The police detective who keeps trying to solve the murders and mysteries he comes across only to see his actions stopped by the upper classes. The book is full of information about the distinctions between classes and about women’s role in society. I did like Harry and Rose although Rose did sometimes sound a bit TSTL and too socially awkward to truly be real. They are attracted to each other but spend most of the book in denial or misunderstanding each other's intentions.

The mystery ends up being solved by both of them after investigating everyone’s history and possible motives and Rose cannot resist a final confrontation with danger. A nice and entertaining read!

Grade: 4/5