A Devious Death
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4.0 • 3 Ratings
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- $2.99
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
While on a visit to a country estate, a lady and her maid “devise a clever plan to catch the killer” in this mystery set in post-WWI England (Kirkus).
Lady Phoebe Renshaw and her sister Julia are eager for a summer getaway at High Head Lodge, their cousin Regina’s newly purchased estate. But they are not the only houseguests. Regina's mother and brother—bitter over the unequal distribution of her father's inheritance—have descended on the house to confront her.
In addition to the family tension, Eva is increasingly suspicious of Julia's new maid, wondering why she left her former employer so suddenly—and why she seems to make Regina so ill at ease. But things go from tense to tragic when their hostess is mysteriously murdered in her bed with no sign of struggle. Now, with suspects in every room, Phoebe and Eva must catch a killer before their brief getaway leaves them gone for good.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Maxwell's well-crafted third Lady and Lady's Maid mystery featuring Lady Phoebe Renshaw and her maid, Eva Huntford (after 2016's A Pinch of Poison), shows how class lines were blurred in post-WWI Britain. In August 1919, 20-year-old Phoebe and her elder sister, Julia, are invited by their cousin Regina Brockhurst to visit their relative's new home, High Head Lodge, and help remodel the rundown manse into what Regina vaguely describes as a "gathering place for today's enlightened intellectuals." But a confrontation ensues when Regina's mother, brother, and sister-in-law show up with a lawyer in tow. Regina's recently deceased father, Lord Mandeville, left all his money to his daughter and nothing but an empty title to his son. When someone stabs Regina to death with a hat pin, suspicion falls on the members of her immediate family, but Phoebe and Eva soon discover that others stood to gain from Regina's demise. Maxwell artfully portrays the personal dynamics of English society at the time, and readers will hope to see more of the endearing Phoebe and Eva.
