Murder at the White Palace (Sparks & Bainbridge Mystery, 6)
Once again Sparks & Bainbridge, the feisty proprietresses of The Right Sort Marriage Bureau, stumble onto nefarious doings! While they are simply trying to manage their own love lives and make happy matches for other people, what should come to light but a mysterious mummified body? Obviously, they cannot help but get involved, come what may.
Murder at the White Palace is their sixth outing and well up to standard. It includes a satisfyingly tricky mystery, witty dialogue, and a certain development and deepening of the main characters: petite but dangerous Iris Sparks and tall, aristocratic Gwendolyn Bainbridge. Each brings different aptitudes and experience to the disparate businesses of detection and matchmaking, set among the ruins—and revival—of postwar London, all of which is well evoked. Allison Montclair is an excellent researcher and draws a lively picture of the era.
A set of wildly disparate male admirers, both present and exes, add spice to the mixture. This installment includes fascinating and very well-described games of snooker, as well as several murders, a wedding, and a New Year’s ball that carries the story into 1947. The characters range from members of the English nobility to a member of Parliament, from titans of industry to gangsters, snooker sharks, and petty criminals with names like Eggy.
The convincing female characters, complete with details of clothes and makeup, and the authentic-feeling British 1940s setting are even more impressive and amusing because “Allison Montclair” was recently revealed to be a pen name. The real author turns out to be not a latter-day Agatha Christie but New Jersey-based writer Alan Gordon. Brava/Bravo, Allison/Alan! Let’s have the seventh Sparks & Bainbridge asap.
