With her theater closed for renovations, Guinevere lands a summer job cataloging books at a castle on Cornisea, a small island off the coast of England. Together with her little dachshund Dolly, she sets off, expecting an idyllic summer exploring the tiny island. When she arrives, she’s delighted to learn that the castle is hosting a re-enactment of a historic trial, but when a man is found murdered in the dungeon and her new employer is accused, Guinevere jumps into action to find the real killer, uncovering a greedy plot and family secrets.

Thoroughly enjoyable first in a new series, with a charming location, rich plot and of course, an adorable Doxie.  What more can you ask for in a cozy?  I loved this from the very first page,  I felt like I was right there along with Guinevere as she got off the train heading for Cornisea, I could almost feel Dolly tugging at the leash!  The pace was perfect, introducing the characters with just enough detail to make them jump right off the page and setting up the puzzling plot full of twists and turns that kept me glued to the book.  I enjoyed watching it all unfold, locked room mysteries are my favorite and I really appreciated Guinevere’s thought process in solving it,  no sudden AHA! moment for our girl, she sat down and figured it all out rationally.  Go LOGIC!

Overall, Death Plays a Part charmed the socks off me and I can’t wait for the next book to come out in August.  Will Oliver and Guinevere let their sparks fan into a relationship? Will Lord Bolingbrooke ever catalog all of his books? Will the treasure be found? I’m gonna stay tuned for more!

The start of a new trilogy by Lavinia Collins. If you like your Arthurian legend hot and steamy, look no further than these books. Centering on Igraine, the mother of the mythical King Arthur, the novel is full of politics, romance, intrigue and more.

Taking more than a few cues from Murder at the Vicarage, published in 1930, Bude's 1935 mystery is quite entertaining if a bit derivative.

I love books set on the coast of Cornwall - and this one is also set in March, so it has all of the blustery, windswept charm that we might expect. The vicar and the doctor in the village of Boscawen spend their evenings reading detective novels by the fireside. When real murder intrudes, the Vicar is delighted with the opportunity to exercise his skills in assisting the local Inspector in his investigation.

I've now read several from the British Library Crime Classics series, and I've found Bude to be among the best of the writers. I also enjoyed his Death on the Riviera, and thought that this one had an even stronger mystery. I will admit, however, that none of the books, so far, have even approached Christie's mastery. The writing in them tends to be workmanlike at best, and at times positively awkward. No one manages pacing as well as she did, and her ability to describe a character using ten words is unparalleled.

I keep hoping to find another Agatha Christie, but I'm compelled, at this point, to admit that perhaps she was, in fact, the unassailable Queen, sharing her title with no one. This one is enjoyable, but it's no Poirot.

Okay, so it turns out I’ve now read this book twice, well, sort of. I didn’t realise I had already read the shorter version of this book under the name of The Postcard, until I reached the part with Rudolph, and thought, wait a minute, I’ve definitely read about Rudolph and his shiny nose before, and I don’t mean the children’s book Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, although I did love that as a child. I did a bit of Goodreads investigating, and realised I read The Postcard a year ago. Yes, my memory really is that bad! I’ve often joked that I only need a handful of books, as I pretty much forget a story as soon as I read the last page and move on to the next book. I think this proves it. It won’t surprise that I have no idea what the differences are between both books, seeing as I only remembered snippets from the first time I read it.

However, I’m pleased to announce that I agree with my own review from last year of the shorter version of this book, which is as follows:

The Postcard is an emotional and magical novella.

It is about a woman who hasn’t fully got over the death of her mother. When sorting through her mother’s old desk, she discovers a postcard written to her, which begins a series of mystical events.

A lovely festive read with an element of Christmas spirit, and I don’t mean of the infused with alcohol kind.

The Postcard has a good balance of both happy and tear jerker moments. A touching story to read during the run up to Christmas.

What I will add, is I think I found it more emotional this time round, as I lost my 14 year old dog and my 90 year old grandma this year, so related more closely to the grief that was covered in this story.

Due to the depth of the story and good character development, this is so much more than just a Christmas story, so I would say this could be enjoyed all year round. Now, let’s see if I can try remember not to read this again next November.

This was a quaint old-school murder mystery from 1935. It features an Inspector Bisgwell who seems to come up with his theories a bit precipitously and an amateur detective, the Vicar Dodd, who up to this point has only solved murder mysteries in books (the thrillers of the day) through his library buddy-reads with his friend, the Doctor Pendrill. I mention this mostly because it sets the book off on a note of camaraderie over shared mysteries and we have a series of murder-theory conversations between pairs of characters throughout. Plus the idea that the vicar and the doctor of a village would have a weekly dinner and book club meeting to discuss mystery novels was very cute.

Part of what made this book interesting was that we started off with a very narrow window in which the murder occurred and it kept getting narrower and narrower until it was just a few minutes. I did have trouble picturing the environs of the murder scene, though, and I’m still not entirely sure I can picture what happened properly. I was actually thinking that it might work better as a TV adaptation because then you’d actually be able to see what they were talking about and see that it would actually work. I think I may have finally succeeded in working out the angles, but I’m not certain of it.

Regardless, the trail of evidence was fun to follow, and we get to see the vicar go all CSI with a ball of string. We also have a scene where the Inspector arrives with a constable somewhere to look for evidence and finds the vicar already wandering around with a flashlight with the same intention.

And since I don’t recall encountering the second proverb, I’ll include an exchange between the Inspector and the vicar from p 249:

“Great minds think alike, eh, sir?”

“Or conversely, Inspector—fools seldom differ. It’s curious how these old proverbs cancel each other out with such charming inconsequence.”

I’m counting this one as the “It was a dark and stormy night” square for the Halloween Bingo because the murder occurred during a storm at night (late evening), and the storm was a key aspect of the murder.