Stella & Lyndy #6
Murder at Glenloch Hill is the sixth book in Clara McKenna’s Stella and Lyndy series set in early 1900s England (or, in this case, Scotland). The two protagonists are a recently married couple: Stella Kendrick, the daughter of a wealthy Kentucky horse farmer, and Edwin “Lyndy” Lyndhurst, a British aristocrat from an impoverished noble family. The marriage was arranged by their fathers because Lyndy’s family needed Stella’s fortune to save their estate, and Stella’s father wanted the prestige of an aristocratic title in the family. Luckily for the couple, they fell in love, with the help of a shared love of horses. Stella’s father has died since then (murdered in a previous book), and Lyndy’s father is always away, indulging his passion for fossil-hunting. Lyndy’s snobbish mother, Lady Atherly, disapproves of Stella because she’s American and because of her adventurous spirit, which means she doesn’t always follow society’s expectations of an aristocratic lady. Lately, though, she and Stella have been getting along better, but, at the beginning of this novel, Lady Atherly is disappointed in Stella because she has yet to produce an heir.
Suggesting that a change in climate will lead to the desired result, Lady Atherly sends Stella and Lyndy to Scotland, where Stella has discovered she has relatives she has never met. These relatives, Hamish and Virginia McEwen, live at a manor house, Glenloch Hill, near the famous golf course at St. Andrews, where the Open Championship (now the British Open) is about to take place. Lyndy’s sister Alice is engaged to Freddy Kentfield, a golfer who is competing in the tournament, and the four young people travel to Scotland together. When they arrive, their luggage goes missing and their hosts are not there to meet them. Instead, Freddy’s roguish father, Sir Edwin, has shown up uninvited at Glenloch Hill, supposedly to see his son play in the tournament, but no one believes that is the real purpose for his visit. Sir Edwin is a former lover of Lyndy’s mother and Lyndy was named after him. In the previous book, Stella and Lyndy had helped clear Sir Edwin of murder, but they still do not get along with him, and they are not happy to see him at Glenloch Hill.
When Stella explores the grounds, still waiting to meet her relatives, she finds Aggie, a laundry maid, in distress. She has been assaulted by a man, and when Stella asks her who attacked her, she names Sir Edwin, but she’s afraid to tell the McEwens because she doesn’t want to lose her position. The McEwens finally make their appearance. Hamish seems very evasive, obviously keeping secrets, and Virginia is fragile and has frequent fainting spells. Also staying with the couple are friends of theirs from their school days: Jeanie, a flirtatious widow, and Alasdair, a golfer who is playing in the tournament. Stella overhears a conversation where it appears Sir Edwin is blackmailing Hamish over something to do with Sir Edwin’s late brother.
Stella tells Lyndy about the assault on Aggie, the laundry maid, and he confronts Sir Edwin about it. After Sir Edwin makes suggestions that he might be Lyndy’s biological father, Lyndy is outraged and punches him. Not long afterwards, Aggie finds Sir Edwin’s dead body. He has been bludgeoned to death with a golf club which, it turns out, is one of a set of clubs Lyndy had been using to learn to play golf. The police arrive, led by Inspector Docherty. Unlike the friendly inspector Stella and Lyndy have worked with while solving crimes near their home, Docherty does not appreciate what he sees as Stella’s interference in police business. The two main suspects are Lyndy, because of his fight with Sir Edwin before the murder, and Aggie, because of Sir Edwin’s assault on her and because she was the one to find the body.
Aggie certainly behaves strangely after the murder, wishing to leave Glenloch Hill. Why would she want to leave now that her assailant is dead, unless she’s guilty? At first she seems to confess to the crime, but, when the police are about to take her away, she says she didn’t kill Sir Edwin, but she feels guilty because she thinks her actions led to his death. Not long afterwards, Aggie is found dead, hanging from a laundry line, after having left a suicide note. The police think the case is closed, that Aggie killed Sir Edwin after all, and then committed suicide out of guilt.
But then Stella learns that Aggie didn’t know how to read or write, so she couldn’t have written the suicide note. An examination of her body shows that she was murdered. Unfortunately, though, that leaves Lyndy as the only suspect, and the police are convinced he is the killer when they find the murder weapon, the missing golf club, in Lyndy’s trunk that had gone missing when he and Stella first arrived. From this point on, the story becomes a desperate race against time: Stella must find the real killer, or Lyndy will hang for a murder he didn’t commit.
I enjoy this series very much because of the beautiful settings in rural England or, in this novel, near one of the world’s oldest golf courses in Scotland, and because of the two delightful protagonists. Stella is highly intelligent, adventurous, and determined to find the truth. Lyndy can be hot-tempered, as we see when he punches Sir Edwin, but he is passionate and a loving husband to Stella, without being overprotective of her. The two of them are devoted to each other. They also have a way with horses, and this book includes some beautiful scenes of Stella, in particular, riding a horse through the countryside, although this time it’s not her beloved mare Tully, but Morag, a spirited horse from the Glenloch Hill stables.
Golf enthusiasts will love this novel, with its scenes at the Open Championship at St Andrews. McKenna gives us fascinating details about the history of the tournament, and about the various holes on the course, which is the first 18-hole golf course. Her author’s note also includes interesting facts about the tournament. The most important characters who are golfers, Freddy and Alasdair, are fictional, but real golfers, including “Old Tom Morris” and James Braid, make brief appearances.
I highly recommend Murder at Glenloch Hill, but I would say that it’s probably not the best entry point into the series, because a new reader would probably want to know more about the characters and their backgrounds. People who have seen Stella and Lyndy fall in love, and all they have been through together, will realize how much is at stake, as Stella desperately searches for the killer so she can save Lyndy’s life. I would recommend this series to fans of Dianne Freeman and Tasha Alexander, and to fans of Downton Abbey as well. The American bride saving the fortunes of the English aristocratic family will certainly seem familiar. I will look forward to seeing what will happen next to Stella and Lyndy. And I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say Lyndy goes free at the end. It is a series, after all. A few plot points (Lyndy’s parentage, the lack of an heir) go unresolved, and I will be interested to see what happens in future novels. — Vicki Kondelik