★★★★★ 4
Fun Seeing Where it All Begins for the Fantastic Amateur Detecting Duo
Format: Audiobook
I started with book three in this series, progressed forward, and finally took the opportunity to go back and get the first book in the series. The whimsical, cozy mystery paired with historical Edwardian setting was light and whimsical.
Actually, when I started listening, I realized that the first book introduced Lady Hardcastle and her ladies' maid, Florence Armstrong along with their new home and the other regular characters, in such a way that it didn't feel like the first book so much as the first of the stories that had been recorded. There are hints of their unusual, dangerous work abroad and no big explanation why the pair happened to be set upon 'a quiet life in the country' or why Lady Hardcastle and Florence have a relationship that is nearly family rather than an employer and servant from separate classes. The author trickles out the details and the reader/listener must catch them and piece them together as they go. Because I had experienced later books, those pieces stuck out easily to me. The meeting with Inspector Sunderland and the local villagers and neighborhood was fun.
There are two murder mysteries that have interesting crossover people and facts. One seems to involve a dead man from the village cricket team whose death was meant to appear like a suicide and then later, the death of a rag-time band trumpeteer that played at the engagement party of the local squire's daughter. A theft is tossed in for good measure.
I figured out one of the murders and part of the theft and the second murder, but the ultimate solution took me by surprise. Loved seeing the intrepid Flo able to get in some of her martial arts ability and spend time trailing along as they teased out the solution along side Inspector Sunderland.
Elizabeth Knowelden is an absolute gem of a narrator and the voice of this series for me. She laid out the Edwardian country village world, the variety of genders and accents, and kept the pace and tone for this series just right.
All in all, I thought this first entry was as fabulous as the later books and do not hesitate to put it out there as a good bet for historical cozy mystery lovers.
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Reviewed in the United States on March 22, 2019
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