Lady Harleigh #6
A Newlywed’s Guide to Fortune and Murder is the sixth book in Dianne Freeman’s delightful Countess of Harleigh mystery series set in London in 1900. Frances, the American-born Countess of Harleigh, is newly married to her beloved George Hazelton. She has found the happiness in her second marriage that she did not find in her first, to a philandering aristocrat who married her for her money and who died under mysterious circumstances in his mistress’ bed. In the first book in the series, A Lady’s Guide to Etiquette and Murder, she solves the mystery of her first husband’s death, and it is this case that brings Frances and George together. They have become partners in crime-solving as well as in life, and it is very much an equal partnership, even though George objects to accepting money from Frances’ father and that becomes a point of tension between them early in the book. But never fear, the tension doesn’t last very long.
At the beginning of the book, Lady Winstead, a cantankerous, elderly, recently-widowed viscountess, asks Frances to sponsor her niece, Kate, in her presentation to Queen Victoria. Lady Winstead is unable to do it because the family is still in mourning for her late husband, and she has been ill herself. At the same time, Lady Winstead’s friend Lady Esther, another crotchety old lady Frances had met during some of her previous cases, suspects that Lady Winstead’s family is drugging her with laudanum, either to kill her or to keep her sedated so she wouldn’t object to giving them money. When Frances arrives at Lady Winstead’s house to meet with her and Kate, the elderly lady faints, and Frances suspects that her illness is not a natural one. She agrees to help Lady Esther find out who is drugging Lady Winstead, and why.
Meanwhile, George takes on an assignment from the British Museum, to find the journal of Lady Winstead’s late husband, Lord Peter (could this be a reference to Peter Wimsey?), an adventurer and Egyptologist, which documents his discoveries. The Egyptian artifacts Lord Peter found in his expeditions have all been turned over to the museum, but the journal is missing, and the artifacts are much less valuable without the documentation. Frances and George suspect that a member of the family stole it, but they have no idea of the motive. After speaking with Lady Winstead and her niece, Kate, Frances comes to suspect that Lord Peter did not die of natural causes, even though there was no autopsy because at the time there was no reason to suspect foul play.
Frances finds there are plenty of suspects in both the death of Lord Peter and the poisoning of Lady Winstead. First of all, there are the various members of the Ashley family, who are Lord Peter’s children by his first marriage and Lady Winstead’s stepchildren. They are certainly an unpleasant group. The older son, Jonathon, the new viscount, is rude to Frances whenever he sees her, and wants to get Kate out of the house as soon as possible, preferably by marrying her off. Kate had rejected his own proposal of marriage, which, Frances suspects, is the reason for his bad treatment of her. Then there are Lord Peter’s second son, Simon, and his wife, Violet (“Si and Vi,” as they are known). They are not as openly unpleasant as Jonathon, but they were friends of Frances’ late first husband and just as spendthrift as he was. Jonathon’s teenage son, Andrew, seems at first to be the most sensible of the lot, but Frances soon finds out that he makes cruel jokes at others’ expense, such as saying that someone turns up dead wherever Kate goes.
As for Kate, she seems to be the prime suspect at first, because she is the one who stands to inherit from Lady Winstead. The lady despises her stepchildren, and would not leave them anything. Frances wonders if that is why they’re keeping her drugged: to get money out of her while she’s alive. Kate is quite a mystery herself. She lies about her age, saying she is twenty-three when, in fact, she is twenty-eight. And she has a secret: she is an actress in a popular play, as Frances and George discover one night when they go to the theater. At first Frances starts to wonder if she really is Lady Winstead’s niece or not. It turns out she is, but she wants to have a career on the stage instead of being presented to high society. Of course, she has to keep the secret from her family, and Frances is afraid someone will recognize Kate as an actress when she takes her to society events. Is Kate trying to poison her aunt in order to get her inheritance, or to keep her secret?
There are also suspects from outside the family, including the nurse who had attended on Lord Peter and who now attends on Lady Winstead, and a maid who seems to be spying on Kate. The plot thickens when the nurse is murdered. Frances realizes the nurse must have known who killed Lord Peter and who is poisoning Lady Winstead, and this is confirmed when she and George find envelopes with money in the nurse’s rooms. Someone was paying her to administer poison and was afraid she would tell. Was it Kate, or one of the Ashleys? And is the killer the same person who stole Lord Peter’s journal?
Without spoiling things, I will say that the book comes to a satisfying conclusion, and it took me a while to guess the culprit. I had thought of one person in particular, but it turned out I was wrong. Although this is the sixth book in the series, readers can easily start with this one because it marks a new stage in Frances’ and George’s lives. They are now a newly-married couple, and, unlike several other series, this one does not go downhill after their marriage. The witty dialogue between them is still an important part of the series, even though we don’t see as much of it as in previous books, since they spend much of this novel apart, with Frances living with the Ashley family as part of the investigation.
The delightful supporting characters we have come to love also have important roles in this book. First of all is Rose, Frances’ eight-year-old daughter by her first marriage, who seems to be the only person to get along with Lady Winstead. Then there is Fiona, Frances’ best friend and now sister-in-law, who always knows what’s going on in society. A scene at a ball hosted by Fiona is one of the highlights of the book. Frances’ Aunt Hetty and the man in her life, the theater manager Gilliam, also make important appearances. In one particularly humorous scene, Hetty poses as the dead nurse’s replacement while Lady Winstead, who is not in on the deception, makes life difficult for her, and Hetty tells Frances she might end up strangling her impossible “patient.” Frances lets Lady Winstead in on the secret before anything like that can happen, though. The humor of this series is definitely one of its strengths, and there is plenty of it here.
I highly recommend this book, especially for fans of Tasha Alexander or Anne Perry, even though these books are more lighthearted in tone than Perry’s. Fans of Elizabeth Peters, especially the Amelia Peabody books, might especially appreciate the Egyptological references in this one, and the banter between Frances and George recalls Amelia and Emerson. As I said, the book stands on its own, but I would definitely recommend starting at the beginning, with A Lady’s Guide to Etiquette and Murder, to see how the relationship between the two protagonists develops. I hope that, in a future book, Frances and George will finally get to go on their honeymoon. This is the second time it has been delayed by murder. I am looking forward to seeing where their next adventure takes them. — Vicki Kondelik
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Vicki Kondelik is a cataloger at the University of Michigan’s Graduate Library, and edits their book review blog, Lost in the Stacks. She writes book reviews for the Historical Novel Society, and is currently writing a historical novel. She has been an avid mystery reader for a long time.