Murder at Blackwater Bend

It's 1905, with the women's-suffrage movement just beginning, when Kentuckian Stella Kendrick is offered in marriage to the son of the Earl and Countess of Atherly, with several of Stella's father's prize racehorses serving as a dowry. Lady Atherly would much prefer a nice English girl who knows her place, but the estate needs an infusion of cash to replenish that spent on paleontological expeditions. While trout fishing one morning, Stella and her fiancé, Viscount "Lyndy" Lyndhurst--chaperoned by Stella's Aunt Rachel--find the body of a neighbor, the husband of Lyndy's former girlfriend, whom Lady Atherly would have much preferred as a daughter-in-law. An array of false identities and simmering conflicts between commoners and nobility must be unraveled to find the murderer. The varied and richly portrayed characters make this story. Stella and Lyndy feel quite modern in contrast to their traditional Edwardian parents. Aunt Rachel bluntly supports her niece but disgusts Lady Atherly. Stella's father is a boor with too much money. The outsiders in town, including a society reporter, a paleontologist, and a botanist, nicely play off each other and the local nobility.

Too much is going on in McKenna's uneven sequel to 2019's Murder at Morrington Hall, again set in 1905 Hampshire. Viscount Lyndy Lyndhurst is teaching his American fiancée, Stella Kendrick, to fly-fish when her line snags the body of corrupt peer Lord Fairbrother, who's been stabbed. One suspect is George Parley, who was enraged when Fairbrother bested his entry in a pony competition for the seventh year in a row. Another is Stella's friend Harvey Milkham, the village snake catcher, who accused Fairbrother of burning down his cottage the day before the murder. Stella wants to clear Milkham, but the challenge of hosting her first large English party proves distracting. Meanwhile, Lyndy's mother conspires to break his engagement to Stella and force him to marry Fairbrother's widow, the socially impeccable Lady Philippa, now that she's available again. The subplots overwhelm the sleuthing, though McKenna manages to pull the many story lines together toward the satisfying conclusion. The author's fans will hope for a return to form next time. Agent: John Talbot, Talbot Fortune Agency. (July)

A spirited American heiress who's shocked the stuffy Edwardian aristocracy turns to detection once more. Stella Kendrick's social-climbing father has arranged her marriage to Viscount "Lyndy" Lyndhurst, whose financially strapped family needs an infusion of filthy lucre. The couple unexpectedly find themselves falling in love, but Stella is constantly criticized by Lyndy's mother, Lady Atherly, who'd much prefer the beautiful, sly Lady Phillipa Fairbrother as a daughter-in-law. As Stella rushes off from a party, her beloved horse is bitten by an adder. Harvey Milkham, aka the snakecatcher, saves the horse but returns home to find his cottage destroyed by a fire he blames on Lord Fairbrother. Much to the annoyance of breeder George Parley, Fairbrother's inferior pony wins the 1905 New Forest Pony Challenge Cup. So when Stella finds Fairbrother murdered while fishing with Lyndy, Parley is an obvious suspect. When Lady Phillipa is informed of Fairbrother's death, she accuses Harvey even as she remains remarkably undisturbed. Watching Phillipa use one of Lyndy's handkerchiefs to wipe away her crocodile tears, Stella wonders if she's been mistaken in his feelings for her. Unwilling to see Harvey falsely accused, Stella puts her working relationship with Inspector Brown to good use. She and Lyndy nose around and shortly uncover plenty of surprising motives for murder. Stock characters still offer oodles of charisma in a neat combination of mystery and romance. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.