Cozy Mystery set in early 1900’s England

A Death by Any Other Name: A Mystery (Lady Montfort Mystery Series)

By:Tessa Arlen

Rating: 5 of 5

“A Death by Any Other Name” is the third in a series of mystery books which follow the “detective” skills of Lady Montfort and her housekeeper, Mrs. Jackson. It is the first of the books that I have read and I found it very easy to pick up the story without having read the first two books. I also appreciate that, while the author made references to the first books, she didn’t give away the plots. That way I can go back and read the series without already knowing whodunnit.

In this book, the focus is on a hybrid tea rose society who meet at Hyde Castle with Mrs. Maud Haldane as their host and the death (or was it murder?) of one of their members. The death occurred months before the action in this book but the intrepid duo are pulled in to assist in order to clear the name of a (potentially) wrongly accused woman. The woman, Mrs. Armitage, has been accused of using tainted food which then killed the man in question. She has been turned off by Mr. Haldane and will never find another job. Lady Montfort and Mrs. Jackson step in to see if they can solve the mystery.

The storyline is superimposed on the few days leading up to England’s declaration of war in WWI. It’s interesting to have the slight history lesson on which countries declared first and why (treaties that required it.) Those events are interwoven into the story very nicely and you could see two sides of how individuals react – Lady Montfort who has family in harm’s way in Europe and Mr. Haldane, the owner of Hyde Castle, who stands to profit greatly from the sale of canned food as a war provision.

The book is written in a formal style of language and the manners and morals of the period are evident. It was an interesting read and I will certainly be looking for more in the series in the future.

I was provided a digital advance reader copy of this book by the publisher via Netgalley.