Murder at the Bayswater Bicycle Club

It has been some time since lady detective Frances Doughty had had a case.  She has been approached by a government agent asking her to do some observations at the Bayswater Bicycle Club annual summer meeting.  Certain members of the club are suspected of being spies.

She calls together her team to support her; Sarah, who at one time had been her maid, and her boyfriend, Mr. Pounder, Cedric Garton and the two entrepreneurial boys, Tom and Ratty.  But first Frances wants to learn to ride a bicycle, and to do this she has to go in disguise as a lad.  Having learned how to ride, Frances wants to check out the nearby site where a cyclist had been murdered.  She and Cedric discover that he was likely riding too fast at the time of his death.  But why was he riding too fast?

The day of the meeting and the host, Sir Hugo Daffin is missing.  Frances and her friend Cedric go in search of him.  They find the man she was supposed to meet tied up in a small cottage.  After releasing him, the three continue the search.  They find him in his room in a deep sleep.  It would appear that he has been drugged.

Why would anyone want to kill the innocent daughter of the local blacksmith?  Frances had found her body during the meeting.  Had she seen something that she shouldn’t have?  The police hold everyone at the meeting so that they can be questioned.

Will the police be able to find the killer?  Or will the sharp mind of Miss Frances Doughty put together the puzzles and find the solutions or can they work together?  Author Linda Stratmann’s murder mystery is as fast paced as a bicycle race.  A good quick read with some surprises.

Mourn Not Your Dead

Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and DS Gemma James have been called out to a murder scene.  The victim is Division Commander Alastair Gilbert.  Unfortunately Kincaid and Gemma are at odds because of an incident that had happened the previous week.

It doesn’t take long to learn that Gilbert was not well liked in the town where he lived, yet his wife and stepdaughter were.  On the other hand, Kincaid knows that Gilbert wasn’t really well respected within his own organisation.

For Gemma, a chance meeting with her long lost friend, Jackie Temple brings back good memories, and at the same time Jackie vaguely remembers seeing Gilbert talking to a known informant.  Could this have had anything to do with the murder?  

A spate of burglaries in the village points to a potential suspect, because the victim’s wife had mentioned missing some jewelry.  However, when the suspect is apprehended, those who had lost their possessions, rose up in support of him.  What to do now?

Things take a turn for the worse when Jackie is shot and killed while on her beat in London.  Could this be connected to what she had learned?

Author Deborah Crombie has answers for the reader and some that are left unanswered in this mystery.  Crombie also has a surprising conclusion to this enjoyable read.

Murder in Belgravia

Chief Inspector Beech has an unusual case on his hands.  A young aristocratic woman has admitted to the killing of her husband.  He had come home from the war injured and addicted to opiates.  She refuses to see her husband’s doctor, so Beech is arranging for a female doctor to help.  Dr. Caroline Allardyce has to order an ambulance when she discovers the state of the woman.

Beech wants to set up a small organisation to help get women into the police force.  He approaches the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Edward Henry, with his idea.  Two women, a detective and a doctor, plus two men to oversee them.  He has two women in mind, and they wouldn’t need to be on the payroll because they are well off.  Surprisingly, Sir Henry agrees.

The woman he approaches first is Victoria Ellingham.  Her husband had been killed at Ypres.  She had also studied law at university before the war.

PC Billy Rigsby, another wounded veteran, is to be attached to the team.  His role will be to be a bodyguard to the two women on the team.

Now to the murder scene.  Caroline is sure that the injured young woman was so badly injured that she would not have been able to kill her husband.  Beech wants Rigsby to chat with the ladies of the house.

The other policeman to join the team is DS Arthur Tollaman.  He has a prodigious memory.  That evening the team met together for the first time.  Beech tells them of the pathology report.  The murder victim had shrapnel near his spine, which likely caused him a great deal of pain, leading to his drug addiction and pneumonia.  He was also suffering from syphilis.

Could the young maid, Polly, have stabbed the victim to protect her mistress?  Beech has brought the victim’s medicines to the meeting.  Caroline tells them that some are cocaine and heroin, readily available at any pharmacy.  However, Polly has disappeared, possibly abducted by the butler to the murder victim.

Is the team prepared for more deaths?  Now that the Zeppelins have started to bomb London, will people accept women policing them?

Author Lynn Brittney has the answers to those questions and many more that arise as the team continues its investigation.  The team works well together and the end of the case comes to an unusual conclusion.  A good quick read.

Balkan Glory

Sir Thomas Kydd has returned to England after sailing in the Indian Ocean.  He is spending time at his club, much to the chagrin of his wife, Persephone.  Meanwhile, his good friend and brother-in-law, Nicholas Renzi, also known as Lord Farndon is visiting the Foreign Office.   There he learns that the French have control of the Adriatic Sea. He is also asked to go to Austria and be an intermediary in negotiations for the hand of Marie Louise, daughter of the Kaiser.  He is to take his wife, Cecilia.  There is an ulterior motive to the Farndons’ trip; he is to take the measure of Count Metternich.

It doesn’t take long for Kydd and his ship, Tyger, to be sent to the Mediterranean.  They head for Palermo.  Aboard are Persephone and her cousin Emily.  They take up residence in a small villa overlooking the bay.  Just as they were getting settled in, word arrived that the French were about to launch an invasion at Messina.  Kydd is forced to sail without some of his men because they were on shore leave.

Kydd manages to stop what in reality was a French feint on Sicily.  However, Admiral Sydney Smith wants more glory for himself. He is out out when Kydd refuses to follow his suggestion of attaching his ship to the admiral’s fleet, instead intending to follow his orders from Admiral Cotton.   Not long after, Tyger is joined by the frigates, Active and Volage.

Captains Gordon and Hornby are in agreement with Kydd on his plans for sharing the spoils of war.  Soon Cerebus joins the fleet, captained by Whitby.  Whitby brings a French newspaper, which seems to know the details of Kydd’s little fleet.  He has also been titled the “Sea Devil”.  However, Bonaparte has someone who intends to put a stop to the devilry.

In Vienna, Renzi is attacked by four Russians bent on removing the British marriage suit.  Fortunately, his training at sea saves him.  Later, Cecilia tells him that Bonaparte is to propose marriage to Marie Louise.  He will set aside Josephine because she is barren.  What would such an alliance do to the allies arrayed against Bonaparte?

Once in the Adriatic with his small fleet, Kydd sets up a secret base on the island of Lissa.  He and his fleet set about wreaking havoc.  The French commander plans to wait until he has enough sail to hunt the Sea Devil down.  

What will happen to Tyger and Kydd’s little fleet when the French set sail?  And what is to become of Renzi’s mission in Vienna?

Author Julian Stockwin has based his latest navel novel on historical facts.  Napoleon did make an agreement with Austria through Metternich and the British navy did secure the Adriatic, forcing Napoleon Bonaparte to change his plans.  Stockwin couldn’t finish his novel without at least one major naval battle, which he describes in great, bloody detail.  A thoroughly enjoyable read.

Chameleon

Stephanie Patrick has been retired for two years at the age of twenty-seven.  Now, a man she only knows as Alexander has shown up at her home with pictures of her brother’s family.  Magenta House wants her for one more job.  Can she refuse?

In London, at Magenta House, Alexander informs Stephanie that a man who entered the U. K. recently had been carrying weapons grade plutonium.  He had suffered a self inflicted heart attack when pulled for closer inspection.  Apparently there were other couriers carrying the same thing throughout the world.  Where were they going and what were the ultimate plans?

Alexander knows that the plutonium had come from the former Soviet Union, and they have the name of the man behind the scheme.  Koba.  However, there are two men by that name.  By the time Stephanie is ready, they hope to have determined which one is the culprit.

She returns to Scotland and the rigorous training of Iain Boyd.  It is going to take some time to rid her of her softness.  She also has a tutor to expand her knowledge of Russian.

Her first job takes her to New York City.  She makes a connection with Konstantin Komarov.  Stephanie aka Petra’s first task is to steal a disc containing information.  Things go from bad to worse when she finds the owner of the disc and his bodyguard assassinated.  The disc is not in the safe, and men are about to enter the flat!  That same night another man was taken out.  He was going to be her connection to Koba.  What is going on?

Back in London, Stephanie demands independence from Alexander and Magenta House.  Alexander is reluctant, but grants it.

Stephanie is off to Moscow to broker a deal, and then back to London to finalise it.  She gets to know Komarov better.  They are becoming very close to one another.  Can she trust him?  Can she trust anyone?

Once again author Mark Burnell has written a tense thriller.  It is full of action from beginning to end.  You will not want to put this book down, nor wait for the sequel.

The Back Road

Tom Douglas has left the Met and moved to Cheshire so that he could be near his eight year old daughter, Lucy.  He is on the hunt for a new job, preferably not in policing.  His friend Steve has dropped by on his way home, and informs him of a hit and run on the nearby back road.  A fourteen year old girl was run down.  She’s in a coma, and the doctors are unsure whether she will make it.

That same evening, Tom was invited to a dinner party by neighbours who had just finished renovating their home.  There are about a dozen guests, which will allow Tom to get to know his new community.  Things go well until talk turns to the girl involved in the hit and run.  Alcohol fuels various discussions afterwards.

Several days later, the mother of the injured girl tells one of the ICU nurses that her daughter had made a new friend on Facebook, who was going to be coming to school for the coming year.  She also tells the nurse that the police have found out that the friend didn’t exist!  It is now known that the victim had been abducted!

As the mystery progresses, author Rachel Abbott, tells stories about each of the dinner guests.  The reader wonders which of them was the driver of the car, and who was responsible for the abduction.  The ending will come as a surprise for the reader.  Quite a good read and a real page turner.  This was a book, which I found hard to put down.  I look forward to reading the sequels.

The Rookery

Penny Green is on the way home from the library when she is knocked over and a lad steals her handbag.  Inside the bag are notes and diaries of her father’s.  A man gives chase and she follows.  When they meet in Seven Dials, the lad is nowhere to be found.  The man who chased him had given up.  Moments later a cry of “murder” is heard nearby.  The boy who had stolen her bag was the victim.

Speaking to people at the scene, Penny learns that there had been two other similar murders in the area called St. Giles Rookery recently.

The following morning, Penny goes to the police station to make a statement to Inspector Fenton.  She questions him about the other two killings.  As she leaves the station, Fenton arrests Reuben O’Donoghue, the man who had helped her, for the murder.

Penny starts her own investigation and learns that each of the victims had a connection to one another in small ways.  Could their killer be known to all of them?  She prepares notes on what she has learned and presents it to the police, but will they act on them?

O’Donoghue is later released, but as a result of the things that Penny has heard about him, she has started having second thoughts about him.

She meets with Inspector James Blakely, of Scotland Yard, informs her that he has taken over the case.  Two days later, another man is murdered in his pawn shop.

Later, Blakely receives letters from two different men.  One suggesting that O’Donoghue is the killer, and the other telling Blakely that he is the killer.  How will Blakely find out the truth?  The writer named the sister of the latest victim, and a few days later, she too, was murdered.  How many more will die before Blakely catches the killer?  Or will he?

Blakely has one suspect in mind, while Penny has another.  Which one will it be?  Author Emily Organ has a few plot twists before revealing the killer.  A jolly good read.