Next in the Rachel Savernake series, perfect for fans of the Golden age of mystery and readers of Anthony Horowitz and Sherry Thomas.Framed for murder and with nowhere to go, Jacob Flint turns to an eclectic group of people on a remote estate to save him…1930. A chilling encounter on London’s Necropolis Railway leads to murder and a man escapes the gallows after a witness gives sensational … evidence. After this string of strange, fatal events, journalist Jacob Flint discovers that he has been framed for murder. To save himself, he flees to Mortmain Hall, a remote estate on the northern coast. There, an eccentric female criminologist hosts a gathering of eclectic people who have all escaped miscarriages of cruel justice. This strange group puts Jacob a little on edge, but they may be his only hope to clear his name.When a body is found beneath the cliffs near the house, it seems this gathering might be an ingenious plot to get away with murder. Are these eccentrics victims or are they orchestrators of the great deception? Jacob must now set out to uncover the labyrinthine of secrets within Mortmain Hall, alongside Rachel Savernake, woman whose relentless quest for the truth might just bring down the British establishment…Other books in the Rachel Savernake Golden Age Mysteries Series:Gallows Court (Book 1)Mortmain Hall (Book 2)
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4.5/5
I really enjoyed this mystery set in 1930 London. It’s second in series so I really look forward to going back and reading the first one to catch up on some backstory.
The heroine is a bit of an enigma (lots of room for interesting discoveries), a rich, very clever independent young woman who was recently “liberated” from a remote island when her ailing father (an eccentric judge) passed away. She is a fascinating character and rather obsessed with murder solving. She has a loyal set of servants/friends who help her along her crime-solving journey, and an intrepid reporter and Scotland Yard man to round out the cast.
This was interesting and totally absorbing with solid writing and a clever, intriguing plot.
Much thanks to #NetGalley and #PoisonedPenPress for providing me the ARC. The opinions are strictly my own.
“I CAN’T LET SLEEPING MURDERS LIE.”
This story is set in the 1930ies, after the Wall Street crashes and in the period that communism had a wide following in workers’ circles.
Rachel is the daughter of an infamous judge, who was brought up on a remote island. She’s about 25, extremely wealthy and lives in London with her 3 servants, whom she treats more as if they’re family. She’s got a morbid fascination for murders and in the past, she helped to solve a couple of crimes that Scotland Yard couldn’t crack.
The book starts with Rachel trying to convince a man (who faked his own death a couple of years earlier) that he is in mortal danger. He doesn’t believe her and is murdered not long after. How did she know this? Apparently, she was warned by Reggie Vickers, a shady figure who works for the civil service under the ‘defence of the realm act’. I don’t think that he’s a real spy, but he’s certainly partial to secrets.
Rachel has a strange relation with Jacob Flint, a young reporter for ‘the Clarion’ that helped her solve some mysteries in the past. He admires her greatly but he’s also a bit afraid for her and considers her to be ruthless. He promised her not to publish anything about her without her consent. She uses him to root in places where she herself can’t, not always giving him all the relevant information.
There’s also Mrs Leonore Dobell, a criminologist who’s famous under her male alias. In her books, she points out suspected miscarriages of justice. She herself has a family history in that area. She asks Jacob to put her in touch with Rachel to discuss murder and invites her for a weekend at her country estate, Mortmain. She also invites 3 people whom she considers as having wrongly evaded the noose.
It’s a very complex and complicated plot, as there are several topics, multiple crimes and murders involved. You have to keep your head with the story at all times. At the end of the book, there’s a long list of all the clues you might have missed while reading, that would have given you the solution. I have to admit that I missed most of them; it’s a very nice addition that I wish to see in more books. It’s always so frustrating when you don’t know how the detective comes to his/her conclusion. Resist the urge to peek though, as that spoils the fun. I did resist!
Rachel, the protagonist, can be compared with a much younger Miss Marple (they live in the same period) with a rich girl’s prerogatives. She’s not a PI that can be hired or policeman who has to answer to his chief but a gifted amateur who chooses her own battles.
There’s an extensive cast of characters, that all have their own back story which is important for the various events in this book. It’s important to keep your oversight of those. I can’t tell you more or I’ll spoil the effect.
Most of what I know about this period comes from the early Agatha Christie novels that I read as a very young teen. The atmospheric descriptions here remind of those. This book does reflect many of the characteristics of those books but is much darker and politic in nature, the body count does rise just the same though.
Unfortunately, I didn’t read the first book in this series and that’s a serious setback as there are so many references to things that happened in the past without further elaboration. I really had to puzzle together the clues and guess what had happened before and how the various characters related to one another. Now that I’ve read this book, I think it will be easier to continue with the next ones in this series, when they’re written that is. But I strongly advise reading the previous book before starting this one. It’s well worth it.
I received a free ARC from Poisoned Pen Press through Netgalley and this is my honest unbiased review of it.
This the second book in the Rachel Savernake series, and the first book in the series, Gallows Court, should be read before tackling this book in order to truly appreciate the main character.
The book starts off slowly with Savernake trying to save a person who allegedly died some time earlier, but he’s not interested in being saved and Savernake backs away. Within hours, he is dead having “fallen” from a train car just before a second train kills him. From this point, the book diverges into several stories involving characters from the first book – none of the stories seem connected, but, of course, they are.
Rachel Savernake is somewhat amorphous in this outing because, apparently, the author believes everyone will have read his first book in the series. He is wrong and should have fleshed Savernake out more so the reader isn’t at a loss trying to understand the character and her motivations.
Because the book is set in 1930, there is much hype about this being a Golden Age mystery. However, the author doesn’t do much in the way of setting his story in the time so it could very well have been set anytime in the previous decades.
With all the above having been said, this remain a well-written character driven mystery. However, it is not a page turner and the reader needs stay engaged throughout the book to truly enjoy it. Some readers may not want to spend the time to read this book slowly and that is understandable, but for those who do, you’ll be in for a complex mystery that may surprise you with its twists and turns and Christie-like ending.
My thanks to Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for an eARC.
Mortmain Hall by Martin Edwards is a true British mystery. Second in a series, with the protagonist a lovely female named Rachel Savernake who is the daughter of a judge, who is dead but not missed. Rachel lives in a mansion turned fortress (Gaunt House) with her three servants, Hetty, Martha, and Trueman. Trueman acted as her chauffeur and bodyguard. The others just helped. There is Jacob Flint who is a newspaper reporter and pretty decent guy. It is 1930 and England is still reeling from war and hoping to avoid another. There are people working for the government, covertly toward that goal. A seemingly diverse set of people all come together in several murders.
This is very much a Golden Age mystery. Very noir. Very proper. It is the time when great estates in England are struggling to stay afloat. Owners are doing various things to ensure their own prosperity. The book jumps from character to character; from locale to locale. There is perversity, plenty of pent-up emotion, and a real will to solve crimes. It was an interesting and multi-faceted crime(s). Rachel is an enigmatic character. Her staff is odd, to say the least. Jacob Flint is straight forward, naive, and young. It is an easy book to read, far less easy to see the outcome, and if the reader does figure it out, the reasons and relationships are impossible to foretell. This was an enjoyable, if staid, read. I recommend it.
I was invited to read a free ARC of Mortmain Hall by Netgalley. All opinions and interpretations contained herein are solely my own. #netgalley #mortmainhall