The Lady Hardcastle Mysteries by T.E. Kinsey

The first book, A
Quiet Life in the Country, introduces us to our two main characters,
widowed Lady Hardcastle and her diminutive but capable ladies' maid,
Florence Armstrong, and to the English country setting, but it breaks the mould
in fun ways: the country house to which they move is a new build, Lady
Hardcastle has a racketty background spying for the Empire, Armstrong has been
trained in martial arts by a Shaolin monk, the local Inspector of Police
actually welcomes their help. Events are narrated by Flo, with a general
sense of irreverence:
I was up with the lark on Saturday morning, and resolved at once to make enquiries as to the sleeping habits of larks. Do they really rise early? āUp with the ladyās maidā might be just as evocative of early rising but perhaps open to unfortunate misinterpretation.
The period setting
(1908 at the start of the series) is well done in an understated way - it's
become fashionable to give lots of detail, but here it's sketched in fairly
lightly, which is fine, and the odd anachronism is either knowing, or too
incidental to rankle. Perhaps there's a little too much mixing of the social
classes, but the nouveau riche are, accurately enough, vilified by pretty
nearly everyone, while the local country folk get āsalt of the earthā
treatment.
The mystery is slight
(apparently the original version of the book was episodic but it's been
streamlined into one in this edition), with a certain amount happening
off-stage, but it's coherent enough to be entertaining. All in all a good start
to a series, and more than amusing enough to carry the reader on to the next
instalment:
ā...we can be detectives. You can be Watson to my Holmes.ā āBut without the violin and the dangerous drug addiction, my lady,ā I said. āAs soon as the piano arrives from London that will make an admirable substitute for the violin. And Iām sure we could both have a tot of brandy from time to time to grease the old wheels.ā āThe slow-grinding ones?ā āNo, ours shall be lightning fast.ā
The relationship
between eccentric widow Lady Hardcastle and her maid is a joy, and the trickle
of backstory elements always leaves one reader wanting a bit more. I was pretty
much hooked from the very beginning, as Lady H and Flo find themselves a new
house and set about furnishing it (including, of course, with daily help and
cook). The exchanges between them are always beautifully judged and are full of
gentle acerbity - for instance, Flo rarely refers to her employer as āmy Ladyā
except when she disapproves of her actions, they bicker over who is to drive
the new car, and so on. One has the sense of a long-established relationship
based on mutual respect and affection, and a certain amount of saving each
other's skins:
āYouāre welcome, my lady. I shall yell uncouthly when breakfast is served.ā āWe need a gong.ā
The second book, In
the Market for Murder, is also episodic, offering four short mysteries, and
consolidating the rapport between the reader and characters. The cases mostly
centre on their local village, with cattle markets, pub ghosts, cricketing
trophies and so on. By book three (Death Around the Bend) however, we
are given a āproperā full-length mystery, as Lady Hardcastle and Flo are
invited to join a house party for some motor racing, and this offers a little
more room for development of the subsidiary characters, which is all to the
good since the reader then starts to care about the āwhoā and āwhyā as well as
the āhowā. Flo is in the ideal situation of course, when a murder is committed,
to hobnob with the servants and get all the gen on family and visitors, as well
as on the staff themselves.
A short story, Christmas at the Grange, follows, with Lady H visiting friends for the festive season and Flo in attendance like a good lady's maid, but able, as before, to move with ease between above and below stairs (although Sir Hector takes a very unholy delight in offending his sister by including Flo in the festivities). As Christmas stories go, itās a good āun.
Book 4, A Picture of Murder, finds Lady H and
Flo offering to host a visit by some moving-picture makers as their friends, the
Farley-Strouds, have unfortunately had a kitchen fire. (Lady F-S doesnāt take
advantage though, she lends a surly maid and a more amenable footman to help
out, the Hardcastle establishment only running to part-time help.) Even for our
intrepid heroines, who stumble over murders at the drop of a hat-pin, the rate
at which their guests start to meet untimely ends is a bit disconcerting,
especially when thereās no motive that makes any sense. The cast of subsidiary
characters is beginning to look like old friends, by now, and weāve definitely
started to get to know the village of Littleton Cotterell. We get some more
about the past, too, with perhaps a presentiment of trouble to come?
With the fifth in the
series, The Burning Issue of the Day, the author takes the light-hearted
amateur detectives - we know by this time that their background has been much
more serious, but they have retired from living on their wits in the service of
HMG - and gives them something a bit more serious to get their teeth into. A
death has occurred which may have been the result of suffragist sabotage, and a
young suffragette is on trial for her life. Can they save her, despite the opposition
of the (male) Bristol establishment? I felt that the author genuinely wanted to
talk about the suffragist cause and that it wasn't simply a subject to hang a
mystery on. Kinsey re-introduces a character from A Picture of Murder,
the journalist Diana Caudle who, despite initially clashing with Lady
Hardcastle, looks set to put in appearances in future episodes. She fulfils the
role of ambitious young career woman, nicely complementing the two more
in-period ladies.
I see there is another
on its way - good-oh!
I've just begun the first one, and am so enjoying it. I'll come back and read this when I've finished.
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