Tag: Historical Mystery

Midnight in the House of Commons by Charles Finch

Number 16 in the Charles Lennox mystery series. I haven’t read them all, but I loved this one! Got me straight through a long and uncomfortable flight.

1881 in London — in addition to the mysteries (the murder of a member of Parliament in the House of Commons, a mysteriously vanished fiancé, and a surprising heartbreak), we are treated to numerous and intriguing contextual details about the era: suffragettes, the Travelers Club for Gentlemen (you have to have traveled at least 500 miles from London in a straight line), the origin of and immediate enthusiasm for toilet tissue, 19th century chemistry, and the machinations and odd traditions of the lords and commoners in Parliament. Our Lennox — with his Holmesian observational skills, aristocratic bearing, and calm demeanor — is on the case. While it’s a cozy (IMHO) with some filler — I found the filler infinitely more interesting than the typical food related fluff.

Quite fun!

Thank you to Minotaur Books and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on November 3rd, 2026.

Murder at the White Palace by Allison Montclair (Mystery)

Writing: 3/5 Plot: 4/5 Characters: 4/5

Book six of the Sparks and Bainbridge historical mystery series. These books are just fun — a combination of novel, historical interest, and always an interesting body or two that unravel into quirks and twists and plenty of opportunity for the two women to evolve personally. Set in post-WWII London, the two have started the Right Sort Marriage Bureau. Iris Sparks, with a mysterious past in British Intelligence, and Gwendolyn Bainbridge, a genteel war widow who has recently been pronounced “sane” after an extensive engagement with the lunacy courts. I’ve only read book five so I’ll have to go back and start from the beginning to get all the details, but the author does a decent job of giving you enough background to make sense of the present.
In this episode, Gwen has fun with some bad boys and turns out to be a snooker shark (I’m afraid I skimmed over the snooker scenes — all I got was that it is played on a table with some balls) and has the uncanny ability to tell when someone is lying. Iris is dating a charming man whom we love instantly along with her, though he has ties to the underworld that should be unattractive. A body is found that ties back to history and an old bank robbery, and both women take some pretty interesting twists in their love life. They don’t actually match anyone in this story so (as a fellow reviewer pointed out) we have to hope that they manage to stay in business and nobody is paying them to solve mysteries!

Very entertaining and just the right amount of “cozy” for me.

Thank you to Minotaur Books and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on July 30th, 2024.