Carola Dunn is up to book twenty-two of the Daisy Dalrymple mystery series. Rattle His Bones is number eight. I had better step things up a bit if I have any chance at all of catching up with Daisy's adventures. I won't give away the solution to the mystery, but I am going to catch up with Daisy's personal life, which is of course one of the biggest draws for me to these books.
Dunn was born and raised in England but has lived in the US for more than thirty years now. She's a prolific writer of not just mysteries but Regency romances as well. I've not read any of the latter, but I am quite fond of Daisy. The series is set in 1920s England and Daisy is a Honorable, but without the cash to go along with the aristocratic background. Her beloved brother and former betrothed were both killed in the Great War and now Daisy must more or less make her own way in the world. Probably to the chagrin of her mother, she works as a free lance writer selling her articles on British life to magazines, particularly American magazines. It's just enough to make ends meet though she shares a flat with Lucy, an artist and photographer, and another very independent "Bright Young Thing".
Actually in comparison to Lucy, Daisy shows much restraint in her personal life no matter how unconventional she might be. Daisy has a knack for stumbling, often literally, over dead bodies. As a matter of fact that is how she met her fiancé, Alec Fletcher, a Detective Chief Inspector with Scotland Yard. No matter that the two don't share similar backgrounds, and the two come from different social classes. Love knows no bounds and the two clicked from the first. And now they are engaged to be married (maybe in the next book?).
Alec was married previously but his wife died of Influenza and now his mother helps raise his daughter Belinda. Marrying into a ready-made family? Daisy will surely take it all in stride. She did manage to save Belinda's puppy from potentially being returned to the dog pound when he ate one of Mrs. Fletcher's slippers. Diplomacy is one of Daisy's strong points. No doubt a result of her posh upbringing. But then Daisy is an entirely likable woman and if anyone could save the day, it's Daisy.
It's summer in 1923 and Daisy is spending the day with her nephew, Derek, and Belinda at the Natural History Museum. It's meant to be a fun outing for the kids, but also a working afternoon for Daisy as she begins her research into an article on the museum. It would normally prove to be a quiet and uneventful afternoon. What excitement could possibly occur in a museum filled with prehistoric bones and gemstones and other ancient artifacts? But this is Daisy we're talking about.
Musty old museum filled with dusty bones? In reality the museum is a seething hotbed of jealousies and petty rivalries. This is an institution filled with academics, you know. And someone has it out for the curator of the gemstone collection. So much so that he has been stabbed. Daisy hears a loud crash and is the first on the scene to see the curator dead amongst the bones of a dinosaur. One of the more difficult and little-liked curators. So it turns out that there are any number of people who would want the man dead. One of his colleagues? Maybe a now penniless crown prince of a small country who visits the museum to see royal gems gifted to Queen Victoria (who then donated them to the museum to the prince's exasperation), or a museum guest?
Daisy has an "in" since she knows the detectives sent to investigate the case, and she is already there doing research. Since she is asking questions anyway . . . So mixture of natural curiosity and the fact that she is one of the main witnesses means she is once again involved in a case that lands in DCI Fletcher's lap.
Like her previous novels, this is another very cozy, light and entertaining mystery very much in the vein of an Agatha Christie novel. Lots of puzzle piecing but a healthy dose, too, of family drama and a continuation of Daisy and Alec's growing romance. The bits where they are together, not investigating, but just getting on in life (dining and going to the theater and the cozier domestic scenes) are my favorite parts. These books are definitely "mystery-lite" but I find them an enjoyable way to spend a few afternoons of pure escapism.
I read a number of these books in my pre-blogging days, but the previous two at least, can be found in my archives: Dead in the Water, and before that Styx and Stones. Next up is To Davy Jones Below, which I hope to get to sooner than later since I am expecting a wedding soon.