Mystery by the Sea
(A Lady Eleanor Swift Mystery #5)
Kindle Edition, 276 pages
Expected publication: March 11th 2021 by Bookouture
Goodreads synopsis:
A magnificent seaside hotel, striped deckchairs, strawberry ice cream… and a rather familiar dead body? Lady Swift is on the case!
Spring, 1921. Lady Eleanor Swift, explorer extraordinaire and accidental sleuth, hasn’t had a vacation since she arrived in England a year ago. Being an amateur detective can be a rather tiring business and she is determined to escape any more murder and mysteries. So she books into the Grand Hotel in the fashionable resort of Brighton for some fresh air, fish and chips and, of course, a dip in the ocean.
Eleanor is enjoying her view of the waves and trying to find her bathing suit when calamity strikes: a guest has been found dead at her beautiful hotel. The distraught manager, who can’t afford a scandal, asks Eleanor to solve the case as swiftly as possible. Thank goodness she has her partner in crime – Gladstone the bulldog – to help her sniff out the dastardly culprit.
But when Eleanor enters the dead man’s room, she receives a shock big enough to make her forget even the finest ice cream sundae. The body is that of her husband, who supposedly died six years ago on the other side of the world. Has he been alive all these years? Why does he have a copy of their wedding photograph with a cryptic message written on the back? If Eleanor can keep herself safe long enough to find her husband’s killer, she might discover that everything is not quite as it seems beside the seaside…
A warm and witty whodunnit! Fans of Agatha Christie, T E Kinsey and L.B. Hathaway will be utterly charmed by this addictive and absolutely gripping page-turner.
***
4.5 stars
This is the fifth book in the A Lady Eleanor Swift series by Verity Bright.
This book was quite complex. While looking into the death of a hotel guest, Eleanor realizes it is her husband whom she thought already dead. Now he was really dead and she needs to figure out whodunit. Along with her friends from Henley Hall, Eleanor dives head first into all the action.
I really think the butler Clifford is the real standout in this book. If it were a movie, he would definitely steal the show. He has to be my favorite character here. If he were younger, I would want to pair him with Eleanor romantically.
This mystery was hard to figure out and there were plenty of suspects to consider during the course of the book. There were quite a few threads that harkened back to book one when Eleanor acquired her uncle’s estate. So having a good grasp of the backstory might be key here but it can still be read as a standalone without missing a beat.
If you like historical cozy mysteries, definitely check this one out. You won’t be disappointed.
I received this as an ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) in return for an honest review. I thank NetGalley, the publisher and the author for allowing me to read this title.
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