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Another good outing for our likeable but improbable sleuths, Piers and April. Not a lot of progress on their relationship, but I suspect the author\u2019s going to milk it for all its worth. I have to say, I don\u2019t quite see where the inevitable happy ending is coming from, but we\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the premise: new viscount Piers, Lord Petteril, is asked to call in at a friend\u2019s house instead of going direct to his own estate. A portrait of his late father has been damaged, and it\u2019s upsetting for everyone, not least his stepmother, Lady Haggard. His ex-thief \u2018assistant\u2019, April, hates the idea; Piers wanted to leave her with Lady Haggard to be trained as a servant, and was only dissuaded after some effort on April\u2019s part. Now she wonders if she should trust him. But Piers is getting a reputation for solving mysteries, so to Lady Haggard\u2019s house party they are to go.<\/p>\n
The mystery is the usual thing – a range of suspects, and a great deal of careful questioning and observation by Piers and April. April is able to move between upstairs and downstairs, which makes her particularly useful, and her background as a ne\u2019er-do-well, always looking out for trouble coming her way, makes her very observant. Piers\u2019 relations are well to the fore, as well, including his obnoxious aunt, and his cousin Gussie, a young lady who seems to attract undesirable types like a magnet and frankly is very poorly chaperoned. House parties are notorious for shenanigans, and this one has inordinate numbers of people wandering the upper corridors at night.<\/p>\n
The mystery takes a neat twist towards the end of the book, with an explanation that I didn\u2019t see coming but was very satisfying. A very enjoyable five stars, but I still wonder where Piers and April will end up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Another good outing for our likeable but improbable sleuths, Piers and April. Not a lot of progress on their relationship, but I suspect the author\u2019s going to milk it for all its worth. I have to say, I don\u2019t quite see where the inevitable happy ending is coming from, but we\u2019ll see. Here\u2019s the premise: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[149],"class_list":["post-5355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","tag-lancaster"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5355"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5359,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5355\/revisions\/5359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}