eyes.2c Reviews

The Carnival Murders  (Tate and Bell Mystery #7) by Irina Shapiro            ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I think this was one of the more wretched cases Gemma Tate and Sebastian Bell become involved in. Someone is desecrating the bodies of those who society view as different, in a thoroughly scientific manner. Gemma first becomes aware of this when a young, heavily pregnant woman, Tamzin Norris, is left near to her father’s pub. Tamzin has post mortem scars. Not only that but her unborn child has been autopsied too! As Bell investigates along with Gemma, they discover more bodies of people who have been killed and then autopsied. A gruesome tale, that strikes close to home for Sebastian and Gemma. A Storm Pub. ARC via NetGalley.                                               Many thanks to the author and publisher.

Devil's Gambit  (King Fool’s Mystery #4) by Jeri Westerson   ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Once more King Henry VIII’s jester, Will Somers finds himself assisting a lady-in-waiting in a somewhat precarious situation. Lady Margaret Loy has accompanied Anne of Cleeves from Germany to England hoping to marry one of Henry’s courtiers, Sir Francis Heron. His father, Lord Humphrey Heron won’t allow this unwelcome match. Margaret has no dowry to speak of, nothing to enhance the union.  Margaret persuades Will to present the king with a document to sign stating Henry was in favor of the marriage. Henry refuses. Will goes to Lady Margaret’s rooms to give her the bad news, only to find matters have taken a turn for the worst. She’s found her courtier’s father in her rooms. He’s been strangled! Margaret begs Will to help her hide the body. He reluctantly does. Why didn’t Will leave well enough alone?! Balancing his life between his King, Harry or rather Henry, depending on Henry’s mood, his wife...

A Rage of Souls  (Simon Westow Mystery #8) by Chris Nickson        ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Simon Westow, the thief taker is puzzled. He’d been hired by James Barton to find Frederick Fox. Fox had lured Barton in to trusting him to sell a gold bracelet of his wife’s. Fox seemed trustworthy until the day he wasn’t and absconded with the bracelet. Simon captured him and Fox was for the gallows. He was due to be hanged but at the eleventh hour was pardoned. No one could work out why. A number of theories were put forward.  Now surprisingly, James Barton employs Simon again. Fox has been following him. Barton  wants Simon to keep him safe However Fox and his wife seem to have disappeared. Is James imagining things or is something else at play? Neither Simon, his wife Rosie, nor Jane and Sally, the young women who worked with him can find the Fox’s. Sally has been assisting a group of children who live on the streets. They’ve been terrorised by some young upper class me...

Murder at Maltby le Marsh (Harlowe & Fitch Historical Mystery #3)   by Elizabeth Rose             ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ It’s the late 1300’s. Maltby le Marsh Abbey is having repairs done to the scullery when a grisly discovery is made. A bound female immured in the wall. Sheriff Zachariah Fitch and his childhood friend Lady Vivienne Harlowe head off to the Abbey to investigate. Accompanying them is a young woman, Maleine who’s decided to enter the nunnery, the Sheriff’s young daughter Starah, Lady Vivienne’s seven year old son Martin, and Vivienne’s faithful bloodhound Grunt. Between the children, Maleine, the various persons and ongoing practices of the abbey it seems there’s no time to investigate. When ghosts turn up to show the way the Sheriff and I gasped in disbelief. I feel I lost a lot by not having read the earlier titles. I was interested to see how it would all play out. An interesting medieval mystery with a some fascinating moving parts An Oliver H...

The Silversmith's Puzzle  (Captain Jim and Lady Diana Mysteries #4)   by Nev March                  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ As always I’m absolutely consumed with Captain Jim Agnihotri and his wife Diana. I’m so glad they’ve returned to India—a breath taking, colorful and magical place, along with its squalor, religious differences, underlying tensions and gathering troubles for the colonial British. Diana’s parsi family welcomes them. Diana’s parsi friends and acquaintance? No! Jim and Diana are beyond the tight knit community’s social pale. Jim hurts to see his wife treated so. Diana walks through it all, sad but unrepentant for having married outside the circle. (I love how they relate with each other) However that’s not their main concern. Adi, Diana’s brother, has been arrested for the murder of his friend and business partner Satya Rastogi. Satya was the scion of a powerful parsi family who are jewellers.  What Jim and Diana will unco...

Betrayal at Blackthorn Park  (Evelyne Redfern #2) by Julia Kelly         ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 Much as I like the exploits of Evelyne Redfern and David Poole this was just a bit bland. Heaps of happenings but I felt bogged down in the chase to discover what the murdered engineer Sir Nigel Balram had been looking for. Evelyne and David are sent to a very secret dirty tricks location in Sussex looking for something out of the ordinary when an apparent suicide turns up. Their orders change somewhat. David was supposed to be handling Evelyne’s assignment. Working out what happened was straight from one of my fav English detective novels The culprit is finally trapped down. No surprise! However we are left dangling on a cliff’s edge as the next adventure is anticipated  So, despite the not quite up to par of the first in the series I’m anxious to see what happens next. An enjoyable read nonetheless. A St Martin’s Press ARC via NetGalley.           ...

Murder at the White Palace  (Sparks & Bainbridge Mystery #6) by Allison Montclair      ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Well this series is taking an interesting direction. Post war London, and  Gwendolyn Bainbridge and Iris Sparks, proprietors of the very successful Right Sort Marriage Bureau decide to hold a  New Year’s Eve party for their clients. Gwen has just been declared no longer in need of supervision according to the Court of Lunacy (if you haven’t read previous titles in the series you must to catch up on Gwen’s heartbreaking story). It’s more than time to celebrate! Archie Spelling (head of the Spelling gang and Iris’s boyfriend) provides the venue, The White Palace, a place he’s recently bought and that he’s restoring.  Archie has big plans. The Palace  used to belong to Frank Reese another gangster. Archie bought it from his widow, Vanessa. Of course there’s history—of the gangland robbery and violence type. However, no-one was prepared for a body to...

Some Murders in Berlin  by Karen Robards     ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Heartstopping thriller set in Berlin in 1943. Denmark had just surrendered to the Nazis when Professor Elin Lund, a forensic psychiatrist, from Copenhagen is directed by Nazi command to go to Berlin to investigate a serial killer. Blonde women have been found murdered in identical situations. Elin can’t disobey. She’s hiding a secret, or two. She takes two fellow academics with her as consultants, members of the Danish Resistance, who need to get out of Denmark. Pia is a photographer and Jens is a brilliant mathematician. They are members of the Danish Resistance. She is to work the stern CID detective, Kriminalinspektor Kurt Schneider. It turns out Kurt’s a man with his own set of secrets. I really came to appreciate the man Kurt is. Convinced the killer has some attachment to the police, Elin methodically follow all the evidence to build a picture of their man.  Elin has always hated being in Berlin. Her mothe...

An Art Lover's Guide to Paris and Murder  (Countess of Harleigh Mystery #7)   by Dianne Freeman  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Well this was a most enjoyable read! Paris of the 1900 with the Exposition Universelle and artists in Montmarre! How exciting! It just so happens that George Hazelton’s  aunt Julie who’s apparently been living in Paris for years, painting and making perfumes gets in touch with him. She wants to make provision for her daughter whom none of the family knew about. Then George receives a letter from Julie thinking someone murdered her dead lover (of years ago). George’s wife, the Countess Frances, has been wanting to visit Paris, taking their daughter Rose. A perfect opportunity until they’re all embroiled in murderous undertakings. I really enjoyed the metaphorical walk around Paris of these times pursuing lines of inquiry that lead to deception and intrigue. A Kensington Press ARC via NetGalley.                   ...

Under the Paper Moon  by Shaina Steinberg    ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Evelyn Bishop is the daughter of a wealthy American aeronautics industrialist. Evelyn is totally out of step and bored by the expectations her social strata has for women. When her brother Matthew, fighting in Europe, (pre the US’s entry into the war) is captured by the Nazi’s she can’t sit quietly at home. Evelyn goes to London and ostensibly becomes a translator. Evelyn speaks five languages.  In reality she joins the Office of Strategic Services, a clandestine US organization and becomes  an  intelligent officer. She spent the war parachuting out of planes behind enemy lines, over France. Evelyn is always searching for any news of her brother Matthew’s whereabouts.  She works closely with Nick Gallagher, who’s the leader of the Intelligence Team Evelyn’s assigned to. The chemistry between them is volcanic. So it’s all the more shocking when something happens after Victory Day, something th...

Death and Glory  (Barker and Llewellyn #15) by Will Thomas   ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Detectives Cyrus Barker and Thomas Llewelyn have their hands full with the surfacing of a thirty year old document, a Treaty, testifying that Britain sold an iron warship to the Confederacy during the war between the North and the South. Barker and Llewelyn find themselves ensconced in International politics. If the Treaty is legitimate, the British Government is in an unenviable position.  Survivors, ex- soldiers, have been plotting for decades to fund a war from the countries they had escaped to—Mexico, Cuba, Brazil and Columbia. The war of Northern Aggression will be redefined and the Confederacy restored. Now they are raising money and marching on towards their goal of taking the warship which they will use as a model to build more cheaply in the countries they now reside in. An amarda of iron ships will rise and threaten the newly established United States order. (Thomas’s research is amazing!) ...