A Murder Most Inconvenient at the Assembly Rooms: A Cozy Regency Mystery of Murder, Love & Ghosts
Marisa Paxon
When the dancing master of Bath drops dead in the middle of a country dance and then rises again as a ghost to criticise her posture, Miss Adelaide Finchwick realises the evening has taken a turn. Respectable companions are not meant to see spirits, still less to help them investigate their own highly public demise in the Assembly Rooms. Unfortunately, Monsieur Valette is quite certain he was murdered and even more certain he is not leaving until someone sensible untangles the mess.
Adelaide has problems enough. As the sharp eyed companion to a formidable dowager, she is hanging on to her position, her lodging, and her place in society by the tips of her neatly gloved fingers. If anyone suspects she spends her time talking to an invisible Frenchman, she will lose all three. Yet ignoring him is difficult when his complaints about creases keep lining up with her own observations about chipped glasses, dance cards, vulnerable widows, and wealthy gentlemen who prefer their crimes to look like accidents. Working with Mr Julian Ashcombe, the magistrate’s unnervingly perceptive clerk, she must turn an evening of polite amusement into a pattern that points neatly at a killer.
Expect a clue rich, fair play mystery with a satisfying, logical reveal, non gory deaths, one outraged ghost, and a closed door slow burn romance with a hopeful, committed ending. Perfect for readers who like dryly comic Regency ballrooms, sharp tongued dowagers, sensible heroines who notice everything, and courtship that keeps tripping over corpses.
Part of the Regency: Ghostly Grievances Society of stand alone cozy mysteries, this works on its own but comes with plenty of future bodies and romances waiting in the wings. Slip into the Assembly Rooms and start reading to see if you can spot which glass should never have been touched before Adelaide does.
