A Rogue's Company
A Sparks & Bainbridge Mystery
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- £10.99
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- £10.99
Publisher Description
In Allison Montclair's A Rogue's Company, business becomes personal for the Right Sort Marriage Bureau when a new client, a brutal murder, two kidnappings, and the recently returned from Africa Lord Bainbridge threatens everything that one of the principals holds dear.
In London, 1946, the Right Sort Marriage Bureau is getting on its feet and expanding. Miss Iris Sparks and Mrs. Gwendolyn Bainbridge are making a go of it. That is until Lord Bainbridge—the widowed Gwen's father-in-law and legal guardian—returns from a business trip to Africa and threatens to undo everything important to her, even sending her six-year-old son away to a boarding school.
But there's more going on than that. A new client shows up at the agency, one whom Sparks and Bainbridge begin to suspect really has a secret agenda, somehow involving the Bainbridge family. A murder and a subsequent kidnapping sends Sparks to seek help from a dangerous quarter—and now their very survival is at stake.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
An artfully constructed puzzle and dry humor lift Montclair's excellent third mystery featuring professional matchmakers and amateur sleuths Iris Sparks and Gwen Bainbridge in post-WWII London (after 2020's A Royal Affair). The Right Sort Marriage Bureau gets its first client of color in the form of Simon Daile, a native of Nyasaland, a British colony where Gwen's father-in-law owns plantations. Simon came to England years before to study advanced agricultural techniques that he could then share with his countrymen. The war derailed his plans, and Simon, who lacks the funds to continue his education, intends to settle down in England with his white spouse, who shares his Christian faith and openness to travel. Gwen believes Simon hasn't been honest with them, a suspicion enhanced after she gets evidence that he's been stalking her. The subsequent shooting murder of an unidentified African and an abduction that strikes close to home raise the stakes. Montclair's feisty leads continue to develop as psychologically plausible characters. Phryne Fisher devotees will clamor for more.
