{"id":6044,"date":"2024-10-17T07:08:13","date_gmt":"2024-10-17T14:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=6044"},"modified":"2024-10-17T07:08:13","modified_gmt":"2024-10-17T14:08:13","slug":"colleen-cambridge-murder-takes-the-stage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/colleen-cambridge-murder-takes-the-stage\/","title":{"rendered":"Colleen Cambridge: Murder Takes the Stage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Phyllida Bright #3<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Murder Takes the Stage<\/em> is the fourth addition to Colleen Cambridge\u2019s Phyllida Bright series. Our protagonist is obviously Phyllida Bright, housekeeper of Mallowan Hall. She also happens to be good friends with the lady of the hall, Agatha Christie. Living with the mystery writing legend also gives Phyllida Bright early access to her favorite detective stories featuring Hercule Poirot. Both women have a knack for mysteries, and have helped the local authorities to solve several murders. Now they are traveling to London for a bit of a vacation. Mrs. Christie and her husband are, anyway, and Phyllida isn\u2019t exactly thrilled about it, which isn\u2019t surprising given her rather complicated past revolving around her deceased husband. However, she isn\u2019t about to let a little discomfort keep her from performing her duties.<\/p>\n

The London house is much smaller than Mallowan Hall, as is the staff. Phyllida also finds their French chef, while bearing striking similarities to her Belgian detective hero Poirot, is more than a little difficult to work with. Shortly after arriving, however, actor Archibald Allston is found dead at the Adelphia Theater and Agatha Christie drags Phyllida away from her duties to give the crime scene an look. On investigation, it appears that this death was natural, and Phyllida can return to her housekeeping duties. But with a second death, this time of an actor playing Benvolio at the Belmont Theater, and even a third with double C-initials, it seems very unlikely that the first death wasn\u2019t linked.<\/p>\n

The family of the second victim reaches out to Phyllida and enlists her help, promising a hefty fee and, with Mrs. Christie\u2019s approval, to find who could have killed him and the other actors.\u00a0 It’s not an easy task when the public and actors all begin to give way to panic. London\u2019s own Inspector Wellbourne isn\u2019t pleased to have Ms. Bright in his town poking around his crime scenes, especially because he knows of her reputation for causing problems for the detectives back home. Understandably, he isn\u2019t keen on being made to look a fool when the local housekeeper solves the mystery instead of an actual member of law enforcement. Egos clash, but Phyllida isn\u2019t about to give up – not just because she wants to solve the mystery, but because Agatha Christie and the murdered actor\u2019s family won\u2019t let her. With the cover story of being a reporter doing a story about actors, she manages to get an insider\u2019s look into the world of actors and theatrical intrigue.<\/p>\n

Readers who have enjoyed the previous three books will no doubt be pleased with Colleen Cambridge\u2019s latest work. For any who are making Murder Takes the Stage<\/em> their first foray into these books, while the story and characters will doubtlessly draw you in, there are some character interactions and background in the previous books that would make Murder Takes the Stage<\/em> more enjoyable, such as the interactions and relationship between Phyllida and the chauffeur Bradford. I actually found myself enjoying the scenes with them both the most, and would enjoy reading the previous books to see how they developed their friendship to the point it is at now. I’d also to see if there are some answers to Bradford’s history, as some of the things he does in Murder Takes the Stage<\/em> indicates he\u2019s had a bit more of an interesting background than we see in just this book. Anyone who enjoys a historical cozy with some literary celebrities will doubtlessly enjoy Murder Takes the Stage<\/em>.\u00a0 – Carla Schantz<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Phyllida Bright #3 Murder Takes the Stage is the fourth addition to Colleen Cambridge\u2019s Phyllida Bright series. Our protagonist is obviously Phyllida Bright, housekeeper of Mallowan Hall. She also happens to be good friends with the lady of the hall, Agatha Christie. Living with the mystery writing legend also gives Phyllida Bright early access to … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[54,949,712,10,162,993,1887,953],"class_list":["post-6044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-agatha-christie","tag-carla-schantz","tag-colleen-cambridge","tag-historical","tag-kensington-books","tag-london-theater","tag-murder-takes-the-stage","tag-phyllida-bright"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6044"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6046,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6044\/revisions\/6046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}