Murder at Archly Manor

Murder at Archly Manor by Sara Rosett is the first book in the High Society Lady Detective series. Olive Belgrave has left her family home and struck out on her own to live in London. She has been unsuccessful at finding a position despite her education. She gets a desperate telegram from her cousin, Gwen Stone asking her to visit their home, Parkview. Gwen’s flighty sister, Irene has gotten herself engaged to Alfred Eton. Violet’s mother, Caroline and Gwen are not fans of the man, and he has provided few details on his background. Caroline wants to hire a private investigator, but she does not wish to associate with any unsavory types. Olive volunteers to dig into Alfred’s history and the family insists on paying her. Sebastian Blakely, society photographer and Alfred’s godfather, is hosting a weekend party which allow Olive to ask subtle questions. The party is off to roaring start until one of the guests ends up dead and Violet is the prime suspect. Olive must expose the killer before her cousin is hauled off to the hoosegow. Murder at Archly Manor gives us a lively main character in Olive. Her father recently remarried a woman who prefers Olive to be out of the house and keeps pushing her to marry the local curate (he is odious). Olive was attending college in America until her father lost her college fund on a scheme. Olive is smart, pretty and fashionable which is the last thing a woman of the house wants in a governess. I found Murder at Archly Manor easy to read thanks to the authors breezy writing style and steady pacing. Sara Rosett captured the era with the hairstyles, attitudes, language (slang) and fashions. I wish the author had provided more background information on Olive and key details on other characters (last names for example). The murder takes place around the thirty percent mark which I felt was a little late in the story. There are several suspects, a red herring and good clues to aid readers in solving the whodunit. Murder at Archly Manor is a light, humorous historical cozy mystery that will transport you back to the roaring 20s. The next novel in The High Society Lady Detective series is Murder at Blackburn Hall.

historical-fiction, murder, amateur-sleuth, women-sleuths, cosy-mystery, British Enjoying this book was easy, writing a review without leaking spoilers is not. The publisher's blurb is pretty good, but can't let you know that it's hard to pick out who will actually be the victim or how convoluted the suspect list becomes. There are even a small few characters that I really hope will feature in later books. Speaking of characters, they are very well drawn from the shallow to the ably competent to the downright slimy. An excellent read! I requested and received a free ebook copy via NetGalley. Thank you!

Something was wrong with the set-up of the e-book. I liked the story but lots of the pages only had 1 letter on them . It's difficult to read that way .