Murder at Mallowan Hall. Colleen Cambridge. 2021. 272 pages. [Source: Library]
First sentence: Phyllida Bright had seen her share of bodies during the Great War so when she discovered the dead man sprawled on the floor, it didn't even occur to her to scream.
Premise/plot: Phyllida Bright is the fictional housekeeper of Agatha Christie and an amateur sleuth in this historical mystery. How often does Christie enter into the plot? A few scenes at best. This mystery has two dead bodies and possibly, possibly two murderers. [I won't be spoiling that!]
My thoughts: I was so disappointed with this one. I wanted to really enjoy this one. I really do love Agatha Christie's novels. I do love cozy mysteries. This one features a couple murders at a country house party--of sorts. But unfortunately, I found it to be dull--more often than not. And I didn't like the agenda-pushing--or what I personally felt to be agenda-pushing. When historical characters are made mouthpieces for today's times and values, well, it just seems a bit too much. When the housekeeper starts lecturing the maids about how she should not be shocked, embarrassed, flustered, upset--by finding pornographic photographs [I won't go into details of WHAT acts the photos contain or WHO the photographs are of because that enters into the murder motivations], I was just like stop already. Even without this didactic lecturing, the book would have still proven to be on the dull side.
© 2022 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews
1 comment:
I really liked this author's earlier vampire books (published under a different name) so it is disappointing to hear that this didn't work for you.
Thanks for sharing your review with the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge
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