Death at Bishop’s Keep (A Victorian Mystery Book 1)
£0.90
The first title in The Victorian Mysteries series, sure to delight fans of Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie.
Kathryn Ardleigh is everything the Victorian English gentlewoman is not: outspoken, free-thinking, Irish-American, and a writer of penny-dreadfuls, sensational tales of adventure, romance, and crime-and-detection.
When she takes possession of Bishop’s Keep, the Ardleigh estate in Essex England that she has inherited, she shocks the household and captures the attention of amateur detective Sir Charles Sheridan. Sir Charles is interested in the developing forensic sciences: toxicology, ballistics, fingerprints, X-ray, and crime scene photography.
Soon there is something to interest both Kate and Sir Charles: a recently-dead body just uncovered at a nearby archaeological dig. The investigation provides the perfect research background for Kate’s next novel. But the inquisitive writer may be digging too deep–especially when the trail leads her into a secret occult society known as the Order of the Golden Dawn.
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Additional information
| Publisher | The Crime & Mystery Club Ltd (25 July 2018) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| File size | 2940 KB |
| Text-to-Speech | Enabled |
| Screen Reader | Supported |
| Enhanced typesetting | Enabled |
| X-Ray | Not Enabled |
| Word Wise | Enabled |
| Sticky notes | On Kindle Scribe |
| Print length | 308 pages |
by George Nuttall
As. Cozy mystery it fitted well. Relaxing to read with a good mystery story and weaving in famous characters.
Looking forward to reading the other mysteries in the series.
by Beverley Sullivan
Enjoyed this and the further two books in the series that I’ve so far read. Perfect if you like detective stores without the gore. There is a thread running through the books concerning the two main characters so I’ve chosen to read the books in order. These are gentle reads.
by Lynn Morrison, author
This series has caught my fancy. I love headstrong Kate and cannot wait to see how she will upend Charles’ life in future tales. The mystery was twisty with a satisfying conclusion.
by R. Slater
I enjoyed reading this book. If you like reading murder and mysteries set in the late Victorian times then give this a try. It is written by an American couple who have done their research well. So what are you waiting for? Book one in this series.
by Minnie
The first book in a series of ten, I really enjoyed this book (and the rest of the series). They are written by an American couple and are set in the British Isles.
They have caught the English language and its idioms very well and their knowledge of all the places in the books is extensive and accurate.
They feature an English Lord and his American wife and cover a period of change in Britain with new technologies – motor cars, wireless ,fingerprints
begin to appear in crime detection. They also feature well-known people such as Conan Doyle, King Edward VII, Lily Langtry and Marconi.
by Tomsreads
There is good and bad about this book. First of all the good. It is a very carefully plotted crime drama set in Victorian times the plot and story being very hard to predict. The author has clearly done a huge amount of research or is a professor at some prestigious university and teaches that period. The characters, especially Kate Ardleigh, are extremely well drawn right down to the servants and even the police officers. I actually felt sorry for Inspector Wainright. To leaven the dram and horrible murder scene there is wonderful humour sprinkled throughout the story. I thoroughly enjoyed it and have bought the next one. Now the bad. I do understand the author is American and clearly writing for a primarily American audience. The book is written in American English and uses such terms as sidewalk and stoop. Well the American readers might be upset at finding not everywhere is the same as the USA. However, what is extremely disrespectful and inaccurate is to put American words, phrases and general usage into the mouths of nineteenth century characters in England. It insults England and insults the American readers by giving them the impression in this otherwise well researched book that English people spoke like that. Given the popularity in the US of books by Agatha Christie, Ian Rankin, Val McDermid and Conan Doyle (a character in the book) I’m quite sure the author could have trusted her American readers. A query more than anything. Kate is offered £1500 a year plus her keep as a secretary! Really? £200 would have been generous at the time but perhaps it was partly an allowance as she was Miss Sabrina Ardleigh’s niece.
by Sarah Seymour
A very engaging mystery. I enjoyed the contrast between the American heroine and the English setting. It was good to see a regional dialect used, it made the servants characters more believeable. All of the characters were well drawn. The plot itself was clever without being impossible to work out which made it a satisfying whodunnit. There was good historical accuracy without the total slavishness that can make a book cumbersome. I would recommend this as an enjoyable, well written historical mystery with the prospect of a little romance thrown in.
by epitome
This series of books portrays what is meant to be two unusual women – one a servant and one a ” Lady”, each with their own unexpected abilities, who also believe themselves to be friends, living at a time when neither their abilities, nor their friendship is acceptable in the normal world. They aren’t trying to change their world’s perception of women or servants, and they actually still have a huge imbalance in their dealings with each other, but the whole series is a refreshing and humorous take on their world, (police services included). I thoroughly enjoyed this continuing tale.