Quiet Life in the Country

A Quiet Life in the Country- T E Kinsey
Thomas & Mercer
Release Date: October 4, 2016

Rating (Out of 5):
📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Lady Emily Hardcastle is an eccentric widow with a secret past. Florence Armstrong, her maid and confidante, is an expert in martial arts. The year is 1908 and they’ve just moved from London to the country, hoping for a quiet life.

But it is not long before Lady Hardcastle is forced out of her self-imposed retirement. There’s a dead body in the woods, and the police are on the wrong scent. Lady Hardcastle makes some enquiries of her own, and it seems she knows a surprising amount about crime investigation…

As Lady Hardcastle and Flo delve deeper into rural rivalries and resentment, they uncover a web of intrigue that extends far beyond the village. With almost no one free from suspicion, they can be certain of only one fact: there is no such thing as a quiet life in the country.

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The first of a promising new series, A Quiet Life in the Country introduces readers to the mysterious Lady Hardcastle and her maid/friend Florence Armstrong.  An unconventional widow, Lady Hardcastle has traveled the world both with her husband and, after his death, with her maid- who through shared life and death experiences becomes her close friend and confidante.  Through some of her conversations and Flo's memories we learn tantalizing bits of of their past exploits.  I'm torn on whether I hope to get more details about those exploits in future books or if its more fun to imagine the circumstances that get blithely referred to.  I think I lean towards hoping Kinsey continues to give us entertaining hints without the details so we can fill in the gaps ourselves, which not only allows us to imagine all sorts of things but also keeps the narrative flowing smoothly instead of getting bogged down in establishing long past histories of characters. 

A Quiet Life is told from Flo's point of view, giving us not only some delightful below stairs scenes but also Flo's entertaining and occasionally irreverent train of thought as events unfold.  She and Lady Hardcastle have retired to the country for a quiet life and on their first walk through the woods they discover a dead body.  The quiet life quickly goes out the window as Lady Hardcastle decides the police aren't on the right track and she wants to step in and 'help'.  Unlike many amateur detectives, Lady Hardcastle and Flo gain the appreciation and support of the inspector on the case. Inspector Sunderland turns out to be not just an 'official' figure but an intelligent man who learns to overlook not only the fact that Flo and Lady Hardcastle are civilians, but women as well.  A budding friendship between these three people from very different backgrounds and social positions will be interesting to watch develop in future books.

 Jewel theives, dodgy musicians, suspicious cricket players, obnoxious social climbers, and another dead body convince us all that there is no such thing as a quiet life in the country.   

A Quiet Life in the Country is a delightfully entertaining, wittily written, fast paced mystery full of delightful characters and charming English country life.  Mystery fans will enjoy this new voice on the English murder mystery scene. 

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Lost Dog

Lost Dog- Alan Russell (Gideon & Sirius Book 3)
Thomas & Mercer
Release Date: June 14, 2016

Synopsis: Detective Michael Gideon is used to being handed L.A.’s oddest cases, but his newest one assigned itself. When Gideon’s K-9 partner, Sirius, rescues a lost dog from a pack of coyotes, the duo tries to return her home—only to discover her owner is missing.  Heather Moreland has clearly disappeared under suspicious circumstances, and the more Gideon digs into her past, the more he’s convinced of her abduction.  As Gideon strives to help the missing woman, he is also troubled by the suspicious death of Detective Langston Walker, the leader of a support group for families of murder victims. The last time they’d met, Walker told Gideon about a cold case he had reopened, making Gideon wonder if the detective’s demise is the accident everyone believes.

Warning: Potential Spoilers!

Lost Dog is the first Alan Russell mystery I've read.  It's hard for me to pass up anything involving a mystery and dogs - and this had not one but two dogs trying to help solve the crimes.  Even better was that the second dog, Angie, was a bloodhound mix and bloodhounds are not only underrepresented in literature (compared to German Shepherds like Sirius) but are one of my family's favorite breeds.  

Angie is a rescue dog, so difficult that she's been returned to the shelter twice before being adopted by Heather Moreland, who also knows something about the importance of second chances.  She and Angie bond and when someone breaks into her house Heather saves Angie by shoving her out of a window.  Angie is found by Sirius, Detective Gideon's K-9 German Shepherd partner, and the pair set out to return Angie to her home.  Except the home has obviously been broken into and Angie's person missing.  The lost dog search becomes a lost human search, and Gideon knows its a race against time to try and find Heather still alive.

I had mixed feelings about this book by the end.  It seemed to drag out, and alternate between very slow going and fast paced action.  There end up being three different crimes Gideon & Sirius have to solve (two of them related), and while they are good mysteries, there seemed to be little to go on until the end, when the speed picks up, and two of the crimes are solved with one case of attempted arson. Gideon also has a penchant for absolutely groan worthy puns that can be humorous in small doses, but are so constant that I could only read a few chapters at a time before having to give myself a break from them and put the book down for awhile.  This may be one of the reasons the book seemed to drag so long.

On the other hand, Sirius and Angie are great characters and Heather Moreland is a truly strong and inspirational woman.  The chapters alternate between Gideon and Heather, and Russell does an excellent job of making us feel Heather's emotions during her ordeals.  By the end when we all figure out who the bad guy is it's a truly terrifying and creepy experience, happily saved by the devotion of a bloodhound to her person.  

A good read for dog lovers.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley for an honest review.