Lady Hardcastle Mysteries (Book Review)

I've been catching up with three more books in the Lady Hardcastle Mysteries series by T.E. Kinsey. I've previously read Book 1-4 and Book 6. Now I've also read No 5 and 7, plus a short Christmas story, chronologically fitted in between books 3 and 4.

The author T.E. Kinsey grew up in London, studied history at the University of Bristol, and had some other writing jobs before he started writing his own historical murder mysteries. 

The first book, set in 1908, introduced Lady Emily Hardcastle, an eccentric widow with a secret past, and her lady's maid Florence (Flo) Armstrong, as they had just moved from London to a small village, hoping for a "quiet life" in the country. (Turning out not quite as quiet as expected.)

With each book we learn more about the duo's adventurous background - which also gradually explains the close bond they've developed between them. Over time they've become more like friends of equal status than mistress and maid. But Florence prefers to still be called lady's maid, rather than for example "companion". For one thing, it gives her the (sometimes) advantage of also moving more freely in the circles of other servants. 

Although they're now living in  a seemingly peaceful countryside village, they keep getting involved in various mysteries and murders. And in the midst of that, the author manages to also catch the spirit and 'burning issues' of the times they're living in.

Titles in the series so far:

A Quiet Life in the Country (1)
In the Market for Murder (2) - involving a cattle market
Death Around the Bend (3) - motor racing
Christmas at the Grange (3.5) (short story)
A Picture of Murder (4) - the making of moving pictures
The Burning Issue of the Day (5) - the suffragette movement
Death Beside the Seaside (6) -  holidays at the seaside
The Fatal Flying Affair (7) - aeroplanes

Christmas at the Grange
A Lady Hardcastle Mystery (short story)
by T.E. Kinsey (2018)
Audio narration by Elizabeth Knowelden (2:05 h)

It's Christmas 1909, and for once Lady Hardcastle - respectable gentlewoman, amateur spy - and her lady's maid, Florence Armstrong, are setting sleuthing aside. They are invited to the festivities up at The Grange, as guests of Sir Hector and Lady Farley-Stroud. But barely have corks been popped and parlour games played when a mysterious crime comes to light...

The Burning Issue of the Day
A Lady Hardcastle Mystery, Book 5
by T.E. Kinsey (2019)
Audio narration by Elizabeth Knowelden (9:19 h)

January 1910. A journalist has been killed in a suspicious blaze. Everything points to a group of suffragettes, but the apparent culprit insists she is innocent. When Lady Hardcastle receives a letter from a suffragette requesting her urgent help, the retired spy turned sleuth knows only she stands between an accused young woman and the gallows...

 

The Fatal Flying Affair
A Lady Hardcastle Mystery, Book 7
by T.E. Kinsey (2020)
Audio narration by Elizabeth Knowelden (8 hrs)

August 1911. Emily Hardcastle and her inimitable lady’s maid Florence Armstrong are enjoying a fine summer until Harry, Lady H’s brother, turns up out of the blue with a mystery for them to solve. A routine parachute test at a local aeroplane factory has gone horribly wrong - with pilot Dickie Dupree plummeting to his death. Harry is certain there is more to this ‘tragic accident’ than meets the eye ..

Reasons why I'm enjoying this series have to do both with the time period they're set in, and with the relationship (and 'banter') between Lady H and her maid.*

*(Those of you also following my other blog, Greetings from the Past, will remember that over the past decade or so, I've been going through a lot of old postcards written by my grandmother's sister Gerda, who worked as travelling lady's maid around the same time period.)

Birdhouses and Insect hotels

 On one of my recent walks around the old cemetery, I focused on spotting man made birdhouses and insect hotels - and also some natural cavities in the big old trees.

Each little flower that opens,
Each little bird that sings,
He made their glowing colours,
He made their tiny wings. 

(Verse from 'All things bright and beautiful')

All Things Bright and Beautiful

It seems I've been suffering from "writer's block" this week (at least on this blog*). Not sure why. I guess it's a combination of not all that much happening in my personal sphere, while at the same time too much going on in the world at large (war and politics) that I feel I can't do much about...

* On my other blog, Greetings from the Past, you'll find a Sepia Saturday 'Jubilee' blog post about the coronation of George VI (Queen Elizabeth's father). 

In my immediate surroundings, things are much the same as they've been all spring: the roofers are still busy up on the roof - and since a couple of weeks they're also accompanied by other workers hammering away on things down in the basement, to do with a full-scale renovation of the lifts (elevators). They've been working on one next-door for a couple of weeks now, but will be coming to ours next. (Luckily I'm not all that dependent on the lift.) 

Outdoors, the rhododendron are doing their best to make us forget the scaffolding...

The weather cooled off for a bit, and we've also had some rain, which contributed to preserving the rhododendron, azaleas and lilacs etc in the old cemetery - where I've kept going for daily walks, enjoying the beauty. 

 

 

For this weekend, the sun is back with summer temperatures - joining in the celebration of all kinds of things: Graduations, Pentecost, and Sweden's National Day (6th June, Monday). And in the UK, Queen Elizabeth's Platinum Jubilee. (I've been watching some documentaries on TV.)

For my own part, it's been a long time since I had any graduations to celebrate. But I still always associate lilacs with the end of the school year - ever since my own childhood.

All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.
 

Spring Market

 

Friday-Saturday after Ascension Day is traditionally Spring Market in my town. In the past it used to fill not only the main square but also the streets nearby, and was always crowded. I used to mostly keep on the outskirts of it just because of preferring some elbow-room... 

In 2020, after the outbreak of the corona virus (and before vaccine), the market was reduced to only a handful of stalls well spread out over the huge square. In 2021 (after introduction of the vaccine), it was expanded with a few more stalls, but still nothing like usual. 

Now in 2022, there are no longer any formal restrictions about distance etc. Yesterday I didn't see any ads in the local newspaper about a market though, and I thought maybe they had moved it to some other weekend. But today, there was an article about the spring market being "back", even if still not as big as in the past; so I decided to go for a walk into town and check it out. It was livelier than last year, but pretty much still limited to the main square, and with space between the stalls. I heard some people being disappointed; myself, I felt they'd found a sensible compromise.

There are three stalls I usually look for at the big markets - and I found all three pretty much in their usual spots. So personally, I have no complaints. ;) One is a stall where they sell cheap postcards. That one was back in its usual corner of the square, and I took the opportunity to stock up some new cards. Another thing I often buy at the market is socks - even if that's something that I can of course also find elsewhere. The third thing I nearly always at least look at, is handbags. I've also over the years fallen for many that turned out too small, too big, too heavy, not having enough compartments, not rainproof, or whatever...

This year, at least I had a pretty clear idea what I was looking for (having searched for a while for a replacement for a worn-out favourite). And, apart from the usual compromise of still not being able to find the equivalent of Hermione's bag in the last Harry Potter book (small, elegant, and weighing nothing, in spite of having room for a tent big as a small flat + the major part of the Hogwarts library), I think I found one as good as  could more realistically be expected:

Besides plenty of compartments, a zipper around the edge can be used to make the bag a little bit wider vs flatter.

An odd experience at the market today was a feeling of "shopping for free" because I was paying in cash with money that had been sitting idle in a drawer and my wallet for two years. During the pandemic it has become increasingly common (and preferred) here that we pay even very small sums by debit (or credit) card (or using phone apps). Some places don't even accept cash payment any more. But at the market today, no one objected. 

Azaleas for Ascension Day

Today is Ascension Day (nearly over when I write this) - the 40th day of Easter, still a public holiday here (marked with red in our calendars) and always on a Thursday. It hasn't quite felt like a holiday here today though, because while I had been looking forward to an extra "quiet" day - without Men at Work on the roof and running up and down the ladder outside my study - they had obviously decided to ignore this holiday and carry on with the job as usual. That surprised me a bit - even if I know that some places of work, like supermarkets, never close on red days any more.

Well, never mind. (They weren't all that noisy - it just made me look twice at the calendar!) For my own part I didn't really have anything special planned. It's been a rainy week and after two days of hardly having set foot outdoors, I managed a walk during an afternoon break in the rain, though. Just my usual walk around the old cemetery - but that did turn out to offer some "extraordinary" beauty, as the azaleas, rhododendron and lilacs have just come into bloom: