Regular price: $35.84
In England in the late 1920s, the Honourable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher, on a convalescent trip to the countryside, goes to visit three old school friends in the area. Daisy and her husband Alec - Detective Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher, of Scotland Yard - go for a Sunday lunch with Daisy’s friends, where one of the women mentions a wine cellar below their house, which remains curiously locked, no key to be found. Alec offers to pick the lock, but when he opens the door, what greets them is not a cache of wine but the stench of a long-dead body.
In the late 1920s in England, the Honorable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher is recruited to help her cousin Edgar - i.e. the Lord Dalrymple. About to turn 50, Lord Dalrymple decides it is time to find out who would be the heir to the viscountcy. With the help of the family lawyer, who advertises Empire-wide, they have come up with four potential claimants. For his fiftieth birthday, Edgar invites those would-be heirs - with Daisy and the rest of the family - to Fairacres, the family estate.
In September 1926, the Honorable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher visits Sybil Sutherby, a school friend now living in Derbyshire as the confidential secretary to a novelist. Suspecting that something is seriously amiss, Sybil has asked Daisy to discretely investigate. Upon arrival, Daisy finds a household of relatives and would-be suitors living off the hospitality of Humphrey Birtwhistle, who had been supporting them through his thrice-yearly, pseudonymous Westerns. When he took ill, though, Sybil took over writing them while he recovered, only to see the sales increase. Now, she fears that someone in the household is poisoning Birtwhistle to keep him ill and Sybil writing the better-paying versions.
In March of 1926, Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher and her friend and collaborator, Lady Lucy Gerald, head off for several days to a stately home reputed to have the best grotto in the country. Working on a book of architectural follies, they plan to research and photograph it. Leaving her husband and young twins behind, Daisy is expecting a productive weekend at Appsworth Hall, with the only potential difficulty being keeping Lucy from offending the current owner, a manufacturer of plumbing products. Alas, it's not to be quite so simple.
In September 1925, Scotland Yard DCI Alec Fletcher inherits a large house on the outskirts of London from a recently deceased great-uncle. Fortunately so, as he and his wife, the Honorable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher, are the recent proud parents of twins, and their house is practically bursting at the seams. Though in need of a bit of work, this new, larger house seems a godsend - set in a small circle of houses, with Hampstead Heath nearby, the setting is idyllic. Idyllic, that is until a dead body shows up half-hidden under the bushes of the communal garden.
It's Christmas 1909, and for once Lady Hardcastle - respectable gentlewoman, amateur spy - and her lady's maid, Florence Armstrong, are setting sleuthing aside. They are invited to the festivities up at The Grange, as guests of Sir Hector and Lady Farley-Stroud. But barely have corks been popped and parlour games played when a mysterious crime comes to light.
In England in the late 1920s, the Honourable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher, on a convalescent trip to the countryside, goes to visit three old school friends in the area. Daisy and her husband Alec - Detective Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher, of Scotland Yard - go for a Sunday lunch with Daisy’s friends, where one of the women mentions a wine cellar below their house, which remains curiously locked, no key to be found. Alec offers to pick the lock, but when he opens the door, what greets them is not a cache of wine but the stench of a long-dead body.
In the late 1920s in England, the Honorable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher is recruited to help her cousin Edgar - i.e. the Lord Dalrymple. About to turn 50, Lord Dalrymple decides it is time to find out who would be the heir to the viscountcy. With the help of the family lawyer, who advertises Empire-wide, they have come up with four potential claimants. For his fiftieth birthday, Edgar invites those would-be heirs - with Daisy and the rest of the family - to Fairacres, the family estate.
In September 1926, the Honorable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher visits Sybil Sutherby, a school friend now living in Derbyshire as the confidential secretary to a novelist. Suspecting that something is seriously amiss, Sybil has asked Daisy to discretely investigate. Upon arrival, Daisy finds a household of relatives and would-be suitors living off the hospitality of Humphrey Birtwhistle, who had been supporting them through his thrice-yearly, pseudonymous Westerns. When he took ill, though, Sybil took over writing them while he recovered, only to see the sales increase. Now, she fears that someone in the household is poisoning Birtwhistle to keep him ill and Sybil writing the better-paying versions.
In March of 1926, Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher and her friend and collaborator, Lady Lucy Gerald, head off for several days to a stately home reputed to have the best grotto in the country. Working on a book of architectural follies, they plan to research and photograph it. Leaving her husband and young twins behind, Daisy is expecting a productive weekend at Appsworth Hall, with the only potential difficulty being keeping Lucy from offending the current owner, a manufacturer of plumbing products. Alas, it's not to be quite so simple.
In September 1925, Scotland Yard DCI Alec Fletcher inherits a large house on the outskirts of London from a recently deceased great-uncle. Fortunately so, as he and his wife, the Honorable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher, are the recent proud parents of twins, and their house is practically bursting at the seams. Though in need of a bit of work, this new, larger house seems a godsend - set in a small circle of houses, with Hampstead Heath nearby, the setting is idyllic. Idyllic, that is until a dead body shows up half-hidden under the bushes of the communal garden.
It's Christmas 1909, and for once Lady Hardcastle - respectable gentlewoman, amateur spy - and her lady's maid, Florence Armstrong, are setting sleuthing aside. They are invited to the festivities up at The Grange, as guests of Sir Hector and Lady Farley-Stroud. But barely have corks been popped and parlour games played when a mysterious crime comes to light.
Bill Vokes has played Santa at the children's Christmas show for years. But with the show just hours away, he vanishes with no explanation. The whole village is baffled. Did something bad happen to loveable Bill, upstanding citizen, churchgoer, life and soul of the party and the holiday season? Jack and Sarah are on the case - and soon discover there are secrets about this Santa that no one could have imagined.
Molly Murphy always knew she'd end up in trouble, just as her mother predicted. So, when she commits murder in self-defense, she flees her cherished Ireland, and her identity, for the anonymous shores of America. When she arrives in New York and sees the welcoming promise of freedom in the Statue of Liberty, Molly begins to breathe easier. But when a man is murdered on Ellis Island, a man Molly was seen arguing with, she becomes a prime suspect in the crime.
When a big movie production comes to Cherringham, complete with lords, ladies, and flashing swords, the whole village is abuzz with excitement. But when a series of dangerous accidents threatens the life of the young lead, Zoe Harding, Sarah and Jack get involved. Are these really accidents? Or could they be something more sinister - even deadly? Who is trying to destroy the career of the beautiful young star - and why?
Eleanor Trewynn is a widow of some years living in Port Mabyn, a small fishing village in Cornwall, England. In her younger days, she traveled the exotic parts of the world with her husband. These days, she's retired and founded the local charity shop. Her niece, Megan Pencarrow, transferred nearby and was recently promoted to the rank of Detective Sergeant.
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...
When mystery novelist Hazel Martin receives a secretive letter from an old friend who suspects her relatives have murderous intentions, she packs her bags and heads to the country. Tampered medications, symptoms of poisoning, and suspicious accidents all add up to attempted murder, and it's up to Hazel and her Siamese cat, Dickens, to sniff out the clues. But with a house full of relatives who all have a motive, will Hazel be able to unmask the culprit before things turn deadly?
Discover Dorothy L. Sayers' inimitable Golden Age detective in this complete collection of the complete Lord Peter Wimsey stories, together in one volume for the first time. Presented in chronological order, these short stories see Lord Peter Wimsey bringing his trademark wit and unique detection skills to all manner of mysteries.
Jack's a retired ex-cop from New York, seeking the simple life in Cherringham. Sarah's a Web designer who's moved back to the village find herself. But their lives are anything but quiet as the two team up to solve Cherringham's criminal mysteries. This compilation contains episodes 1 - 3: MURDER ON THAMES, MYSTERY AT THE MANOR and MURDER BY MOONLIGHT.
Take one quiet Yorkshire Village, add a measure of mystery, a sprinkling of scandal and Kate Shackleton - amateur sleuth extraordinaire! Bridgestead is a quiet village: a babbling brook, rolling hills and a working mill at its heart. Pretty and remote, nothing exceptional happens...except for the day when Joshua Braithwaite goes missing in dramatic circumstances, never to be heard of again.
At the end of her first unsuccessful season out in society, Lady Georgiana has all but given up on attracting a suitable man - until she receives an invitation to a masked Halloween ball at Broxley Manor. Georgie is uncertain why she was invited, until she learns that the royal family intends to marry her off to a foreign prince, one reputed to be mad.
1957. Lord James Harrington and his wife, Beth, run a country hotel in the village of Cavendish, deep in the heart of West Sussex. James and Beth are discussing the latest Cavendish Players production, The Devil Incarnate, when their cleaner informs them that farmer Alec Grimes is missing.
Wealthy Sir Hubert Handesley's original and lively weekend house parties are deservedly famous. To amuse his guests, he has devised a new form of the fashionable Murder Game, in which a guest is secretly selected to commit a 'murder' in the dark, and everyone assembles to solve the crime. But when the lights go up this time, there is a real corpse....
In the Spring of 1926, the corpses of three men are found in shallow graves off the beaten path in Epping Forest outside of London - each shot through the heart and bearing no identification. DCI Alec Fletcher of Scotland Yard, the lead detective, is immediately given two urgent orders by his supervisor at the Yard: solve the murders quickly and keep his wife, the Honorable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher, away from the case! Thankfully, Daisy's off visiting their daughter at school. But when a teacher is found dead, Daisy is once again in the thick of it.
As Daisy tries to solve one murder, Alec discovers that the three victims in his case were in the same Army company during World War I, that their murders are likely related to specific events that unfolded during that tragic conflict, and that, unless the killer is revealed and stopped, those three might only be the beginning.
Carola Dunn returns with a particularly strong entry in her Daisy Dalrymple series in Anthem for Doomed Youth. Eight years after the Armistice that brought to a close the First World War, implications from that arise again in one of Detective Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher's more grisly cases. He gets a report that three bodies have been found in Epping Forest, the stereotypical burying ground of murdered bodies from London. They seem to have been buried at separate rules, the most recent a week ago, the middle one a couple months ago, and the oldest one a year ago. And all have pins on their jackets over they heart, with the most recent body's pin holding a piece of paper spelling out "justice." The only good side to this job is that it is far enough removed from the Fletchers' home that Daisy can't find herself involved. Thus Alec is more willing than usual to discuss details of the case with Daisy. And Daisy's friend Sakari, the Indian wife of a highly important official at the India office, wants to know all the details.
Because of the furious rate at which he and all his officers work to find the "Epping Executioner," Alec can't join Daisy and her friends at the sports day at the school of his daughter, Belinda. So Daisy goes to support Belinda, Sakari goes to support Deva, and their neighbor Melanie goes to support Elizabeth without the girls' fathers. The trio go to the girls' Quaker School in Saffron Waldon, a centuries-old community, and the girls do well at the school games day. The next day, after attending the Quaker service in the morning, the mothers take the girls to a park that contains a famous 17th century maze made of yew bushes. While the girls explore the maze, the mothers relax until Daisy hears frantic screaming coming from inside the maze. Lizzy has come across the body of the games master, and Daisy has to locate the gardener to help her find the girls lost in the maze and the dead body, who has clearly been murdered.
Anthem for Doomed Youth shifts back and forth between Alec and his case of three buried bodies and Daisy, along with her friends and their daughters. The cases intersect at the end of the book, but for the most part, they operate separately without feeling a strong disconnect between the two sets of stories. The book's title is based upon a poem of the same title by Wilfred Owen, a famous poet from World War I who wrote about the evils of the war after having experienced them personally as a soldier in the war. With Belinda's going to a Quaker school, she has a teacher who spent the war in prison for being a pacifist, which leads to discussions of conscientious objectors, especially in the light of the animosity shown to him by the games master, who was an officer in the war and a bully. One might be concerned that such a pattern of alternating between the two stories could be confusing, but Dunn does a strong job of making the shifts seamless.
I had a really good time with the characters, especially being reunited with some old friends. I enjoyed getting to see Daisy's twins begin to grow up and play with her, as they begin to speak a few words. I also had fun being reunited with the timid and proper Melanie and the curious and mischievous Zakari. I laughed at the way Zakari used her status as the wife of a high- level government official to tease the incompetent local detective.
Bernadette Dunne continues as the narrator of the latter half of the series. I really enjoy her performance as she brings this book to life. She does good voices for the characters, giving Melanie a nervous- sounding voice and Zakari a voice that positively twinkles!
I have read all of the Daisy Dalrymple books up until this one, and while some are weaker than others, Anthem for Doomed Youth is one of her stronger ones. Though named after a poem famous for lamenting all the young men who lost their lives, both through death and through being maimed, the book does not push the message of the evil of war to the degree of feeling like a political message. It does show a number of people harmed by the war, but I didn't feel like the message was politicized. I really appreciated this book and found it very well- written. I give it five stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful
The reader must have been different because she made Daisy sound like an airhead.the book was as always great.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful
Made it through 3 chapters and couldn’t take it anymore. She’s difficult to understand when she does a male characters voice.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
I am happy to say that this series is back on track, the narration was much improved (even very good), and Daisy did not annoy me once in this book. I also liked how prominent a role Alec played in this book. He wasn't just the exasperated husband. You got to see how he obtained the rank he did using that sharp, nimble mind of his, a good understanding of human nature, and what makes a man do what he does, both bad and good. I also truly enjoyed Sakari and her successful thwarting of the local police. I've also fallen in love with Tom Tring and Ernie Piper.
The only character I can't stand is Mel. Geez, if her husband could breathe for her she would let him--so mealy mouthed, yuck!
This book is much more serious and darker than the previous ones. There was a particular scene where a former soldier was being questioned and I was so moved by it I felt like I couldn't breathe. It was that tragic, that awful. This one was definitely worth the read.....on to the next.
Worst entry in an otherwise good series. Certainly hope this is not a trend. A delightful series with this exception. Please no more. Go back to the original formula!
1 of 2 people found this review helpful