August 15, 2020
An upcoming census upends life in the quiet village of Walmsley Parva. As conventional English ladies will, Edwina Davenport frets endlessly about how to report her unconventional household on her census form. It's bad enough that she shares her ancestral home, The Beeches, with Beryl Helliwell, an American aviatrix and world traveler. Worse, since Helliwell and Davenport, the inquiry agency she and Beryl run, is barely solvent, the two women rely on subsidies from their gardener, Simpkins, who inherited a fortune from the Colonel Kimberly's Condiment Company. In recognition of his contribution to the household economy, Beryl installs the irascible and often intoxicated Simpkins in a back bedroom. As Edwina wonders how to describe their platonic m�nage-a-trois on their census form, new challenges arise. Soon after Beryl persuades the aging Simpkins to subcontract the physical work of gardening to Irish immigrant Declan O'Shea, O'Shea falls under suspicion of murdering village magistrate Gordon Faraday, who sentenced him to a whopping fine for disorderly conduct. While Edwina and Beryl are trying informally to clear their undergardener, someone steals the messenger bag containing all of Walmsley Parva's census forms. Fearing reprisals from the pro-union, anti-government Triple Alliance, census officer Gerald Melton hires Helliwell and Davenport to discover the thief. Now Edwina faces an ethical challenge: How hard should she try to recover a set of documents she'd just as soon leave missing? In this clash between conscience and convention, hilarity wins.
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September 21, 2020
In Ellicott’s diverting fourth mystery set in the post–WWI English village of Walmsley Parva (after 2019’s Murder Cuts the Mustard), glamorous American Beryl Helliwell and her practical British friend, Edwina Davenport, stumble across the body of Gordon Faraday, an unpopular local magistrate, at the foot of his staircase. The fledgling private inquiry agents find no shortage of potential perpetrators, including Faraday’s widow and stepdaughter, who seem relieved at his death; his half-brother, who has a history of gambling and family estrangement; and an indigent Irish laborer who faces a jail sentence if he does not pay a fine. Faraday also may have surprised a burglar, as a rash of peculiar thefts has occurred in the village, including the snatching of completed census forms. Beryl and Edwina juggle the questioning of suspects, pumping of local gossips, hunting for the missing census materials, and jousting with their nemesis, Constable Doris Gibbs. This is a treat for readers who enjoy following the adventures of disparate yet complementary sleuths. Agent: John Talbot, Talbot Fortune Agency.
September 25, 2020
This fourth installment in Ellicott's post--World War I "Beryl and Edwina" series (after Murder Cuts the Mustard) finds the ladies investigating a string of burglaries in the English village of Walmsley Parva. British Edwina and her girlhood friend Beryl, an American adventuress, are now living together in Edwina's family home, and have formed their own enquiry agency. While awaiting her turn in front of the local magistrate for speeding, Beryl meets a young Irishman receiving punishment for public drunkenness. Distrust of the Irish has led the villagers to assume Declan O'Shea is responsible for a recent rash of burglaries. When the magistrate is found dead by Beryl and Edwina, suspicions zero in on the young man. The begin quietly looking into the burglaries, but are then officially pulled into the investigation when the town's census forms go missing. Convinced there is a connection among the incidents, they set out to clear the young man, while looking for the missing census forms and solving the magistrate's murder. VERDICT This English cozy is perfect for fans of female detectives and mysteries set in quaint English villages.--Sandra Knowles, formerly South Carolina State Lib., Columbia
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