More good clean fun with investigators Beryl Helliwell and Edwina Davenport! I was delighted to read more dispatches from the town of Walmsley Parva. The dashing Beryl is an American who gads about doing frightfully exciting activities, and she has persuaded her impecunious friend Edwina to open England’s first firm of lady investigators.
MURDER IN AN ENGLISH GLADE is set between the World Wars. At this time, some bohemians have been invited by Constance Maitland, a wealthy landowner, to stay at Maitland Park and create an artists’ colony. Our intrepid heroines pose as arty types while looking into a family affair for Constance and her cousin Cressida. Edwina is scandalised by a ballet dancer posing as an artist’s model, the moral code of the day being strict. I enjoyed the contrasts with today’s mores, also when it came to the Maitland family cigarette business; as we see smoking was fashionable, made entertaining by collectible cards, and even promoted for health.
A delightful addition is a troop of Girl Guides, who are camping on the grounds and busily making cook fires, sewing for badges and generally doing good deeds. Beryl has agreed to deliver some talks and demonstrations on survival to the eager girls. While the Guides are all well-behaved, that doesn’t stop them being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’m just astonished that they aren’t removed from the vicinity after a murder occurs.
The murder seems to take second place to the overall situation and characters. Keeping up appearances was so important, while the housekeeper role does not bear any interference from the upper class. Those in the know, doubted that the end of the Great War would indeed mean the end of all wars. Having said all this, suspects and motives are plentiful while Constable Gibbs, a woman appointed during the War and still in the role through her efficacy, is to the fore, but somewhat out of her depth.
If you have been enjoying the witty ‘Beryl and Edwina mysteries’ by Jessica Ellicott, you will get on famously with their latest escapade. Newcomers are also welcome and will find MURDER IN AN ENGLISH GLADE a delightful introduction to this historical series on manners and murders.
American adventuress Beryl Helliwell and reserved Brit Edwina Davenport may seem an unlikely pair, but they have reinvented themselves in the lean years following World War I as private enquiry agents. Now they’ve been engaged to stage a faux investigation—until murder makes it all too real . . . When a member of the Walmsley Parva upper crust, Constance Maitland, seeks to hire Beryl and Edwina for a sham investigation into an alleged dalliance by her sister-in-law Ursula to quell potentially scandalous accusations by an unstable cousin, it is with mixed feelings that they agree to pose as guests at her home, Maitland Park. Edwina is uncomfortable with the ruse, but Beryl is eager to escape tension with their feisty housekeeper and hobnob with bohemians as the Maitland family hosts an artists colony.
But when the painter suspected of having an affair with Ursula is found strangled beside his easel in a glade, the pretense turns into a genuine murder enquiry. With Maitland Park overrun by artists, every guest—not to mention family member—is now a suspect.
Beryl and Edwina must determine if they are dealing with a crime of passion or if there are more complex motives in play, which may include the family cigarette business, cutthroat artistic competition, or secrets from the war years. In any case, the intrepid sleuths will not leave until they have smoked out the real killer. . . .
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