Murder unexpected!

The Unkept Woman (Sparks & Bainbridge Mystery #4) by Allison Montclair 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Sparks & Bainbridge mysteries just keep coming up winners. The tension, the plots within plots, like a Russian doll, all waiting to be revealed.

Post-war Britain, Cold War beginnings—times are changing. British intelligence and Russian agents are engaging.

Iris Sparks and Gwen Bainbridge co-owners of the Right Sort of Marriage Bureau have been making a go of their business, even as they’re occasionally interrupted by murder investigations and / or the intelligence services.

Both have had trauma in their lives and each in their own way is slowly and steadily making psychological and emotional gains. I love their therapist. He’s continually shaking his head as things just keep happening around these two.

Life is trundling along until a few different factors collide. A young Polish woman is not accepted as a candidate for the marriage bureau, Iris’ ex-lover Andrew, an intelligence officer, turns up in Iris’ flat (that he still pays for) much to her annoyance. Archie is present but laying low when police become involved. A young woman’s dead body is found at the flat. Thus the game begins.

Gwen is making headway with her independence and her bid to gain guardianship of her son and access to her fortune.

I’m rather liking Detective Cavendish’s reflections from time to time.

Admittedly I was on the edge of my seat with this post war thriller. Montclair delivers and our two ladies are still standing, despite some hair raising moments.

We and our characters are never quite sure who is doing what, who the intelligence service is hanging out to dry, and who had gone rogue. I did not see the ending coming and felt some sympathy for the perpetrator who’d been deceived all the way.

Another mighty episode from Montclair.

A St. Martin's Press ARC via NetGalley.                                              

Many thanks to the author and publisher.