Kensington Books

Carlene O’Connor: Bury the Wren

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County Kerry #5

I’m a big fan of this series, and I love the folklore that illuminated this particular instalment.  The books are set in tiny Dingle, Ireland, where veterinarian Dimpna Wilde has returned home from the big city of Dublin to run her father’s veterinary practice. While the veterinary parts of this novel were not as front and center as they are in some of the other books, the St. Stephen’s Day celebration that sets the story makes the book a memorable read.

In Ireland, on St. Stephen’s Day (December 26), the townsfolk celebrate with parades and pub crawls, centered on the “Wren Boys” who are dressed in straw and paint their faces green.  In folklore, the wren betrayed St. Stephen’s hiding place by chattering.  Wrens are carried in effigy by the wren boys (in modern times, stuffed versions, though wrens used to be actually hunted).  That sets the scene when Dimpna finds a taxidermized wren on the steps of her practice, and it gives her a chill as she starts off to town to meet her boyfriend, Cormac, to watch the parade. read more

Andrea Penrose: Murder on Threadneedle Street

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Wrexford & Sloane #10

Murder on Threadneedle Street is book 10 in Andrea Penrose’s wonderful Wrexford and Sloane Regency mystery series.  The protagonists are the Earl of Wrexford, a chemist with a special expertise in metallurgy, and his wife Charlotte, formerly Sloane, an artist and political cartoonist who uses the pseudonym A.J. Quill.  It is an attraction of opposites between the two.  He solves crimes by using logic and the scientific method, while she uses intuition and an artist’s eye for details.  Over the course of the series, they have each come to respect, and occasionally use, the other’s method. read more

Dianne Freeman: A Christmas Guide to Family and Murder

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Countess of Harleigh #9

A Christmas Guide to Family and Murder is the ninth book in Dianne Freeman’s delightful series set at the turn of the 20th century, about Frances, the American-born Countess of Harleigh, and her second husband, George Hazelton, a younger son of an earl and a secret agent for the British government.  The two of them solve crimes together, usually among the upper classes in London, even though the two books before this one have taken them to Paris.  This novel introduces a new setting: a country estate in Norfolk.  Frances is looking forward to spending Christmas of 1900 in London when she and George receive an invitation from Fiona, George’s sister and Frances’ best friend, to join her and her husband, Robert, at their estate, Hadley Grange.  Rose, Frances’ nine-year-old daughter by her first husband, is excited about spending Christmas in Norfolk, as are the two most recent additions to the family: Lissette, George’s fifteen-year-old cousin and ward, and her half-sister Christine, a young woman in her early twenties.  Frances’ aunt Hetty joins them as well, after indicating that things are not going smoothly between her and her suitor Gilliam, a theater manager. read more

Alyssa Maxwell: Murder at Rosecliff

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Gilded Newport #14

It’s August 1903 and Tessie Oelrichs is hosting a White Ball at Rosecliff, her Newport, RI mansion. A stunning all-white theme, excellent music and food, and the cream of New York society give reporter Ethan Merriman plenty to write about. Things take a turn for the worse when a stranger named Solomon Wheeler appears, defying the all-white dress code and making a scene by claiming to be Tessie’s first husband – with alleged proof. Tessie insists that he’s lying and it’s not too surprising that his dead body is discovered in the garden fountain before the night is over. What is surprising is that reporter Ethan Merriman is found apparently holding Wheeler under the water. read more

Carolyn Marie Wilkins: Let the Murderer Say Amen

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Psychics & Soul Food #2

This lively and compelling mystery is set in a small town in Illinois in the 20’s.  While author Wilkins names her fictional town Agate, if you’d like to orient yourself it’s fairly close to Joliet, outside of Chicago. The central character is the charming Nola Ann Jackson, who is working for a caterer and lives with her Aunt Sarah.  Both women are psychics though Aunt Sarah has far more experience, and is known as a conjure woman.  Both can see auras.  I loved this aspect of their characters – it made them both more specific and more interesting. read more

Darcie Wilde: The Abduction of Rosalind Thorne

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Rosalind Thorne/Useful Woman #9

The Abduction of Rosalind Thorne is the ninth volume in Darcie Wilde’s Rosalind Thorne/Useful Woman series of Regency mysteries, and I am very glad that the publisher finally recognizes that it’s all the same series.  For a while, they were calling the last few volumes the Useful Woman Mysteries and renumbering them, starting from Book 1.  Rosalind is a gentlewoman who has fallen on hard times after her father, who was deeply in debt, abandoned his family.  She discovers she has a talent for solving people’s problems, and she makes a living by offering her assistance to gentlewomen and aristocrats in difficulty.  Her cases often involve blackmail, scandal, and murder. read more

Kemper Donovan: Sweet Spot

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Ghostwriter #3

This is the third book in a series that is strikingly original in many ways.  In the first book, Donovan’s heroine was not even named.  She was just functioning as a ghostwriter (and amateur sleuth) for a Hilary Clinton-esque politician, who had recently lost an election. In the second, after writing about the crime she and the Hilary character solved, she’s a mini celebrity, and she’s asked on a cruise as a writing instructor.  By book two, she has a pen name – Belle Currer – though it’s made very clear it’s not her real name. In book three, Donovan has chosen to model his story on the heartbreaking 2002 abduction of Elizabeth Smart in Utah. read more

Shaina Steinberg: Echoes of Infamy

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Bishop & Gallagher #3

I usually have no problem catching up with a series when I begin with a later instalment, but due to the complex backstories of the characters in this one, I found myself having to peruse a synopsis of the first two books to figure things out. It’s set in 1948 Los Angeles, and the main characters, Evelyn Bishop and Nick Gallagher, met during the war working as OSS agents.  In this novel, they’ve finally married and Evelyn has taken over the family aeronautics company, while Nick is working as a private eye. read more

Paula Sutton: The Body in the Kitchen Garden

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Hill House Vintage #2

Ninety-six years after Miss Marple made her first appearance in the village of St. Mary Meade, The Body in the Kitchen Garden demonstrates that the gentle English village mystery genre is still going strong.  Like Agatha Christie, the legendary creator of Miss Marple, modern practitioners of the British village mystery- writers like Connie Berry, G.M. Malliet, and most recently Katarina Bivald – find the depths of human emotion and depravity lurking not far below the surface of this seemingly idyllic setting.  Sutton has further updated the formula with the provocative move of having her detective be the only black woman in town. read more

Emily Sullivan: A Murder in Marylebone

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Minnie Harper #2

A Murder in Marylebone is the second book in a delightful new mystery series by Emily Sullivan, featuring Minnie Harper, a widow in her thirties with two children, in the late 1890s.  The first book took place on Corfu, where Minnie had lived with her husband, Oliver, until his sudden death.  She had promised him that she would stay on Corfu and raise their children there, but in the previous book her daughter, fourteen-year-old Cleo, decided to go to school in England with the hope of attending Girton College, Cambridge (one of the first colleges for women), just like Minnie did.  And so, Minnie and her son, eight-year-old Tommy, who is a budding natural scientist, return to London to be closer to her. read more