This was an excellent airplane book. I found it on Kindle Unlimited in the airport, and read it on a two hour flight. It held my attention, but was light enough that I could read quickly and not feel like I was taxing my tired brain.

There is a lot of dialogue and in just about any other circumstance that would make me very happy. I love dialogue. But the characters do a lot of As You Know Bob filling in of the story, telling each other things they already know, or tossing memories back and forth in a clumsy, artificial manner: Remember when we did this? Oh, yes, and then that happened! 

So as much as the mystery is very dialogue driven, most of that dialogue is plot development, not character development. Augusta has some secrets about what she did during the first world war, and clearly has connections and skills in surveillance, but readers don’t learn a lot about her in the first book. On one hand that makes sense: it’s the start of a series. On the other, the book as a whole felt superficial. The lack of character depth made me think of paper dolls against a detailed backdrop: limited in nuance amid an interesting setting.

That said, I read this book very quickly and on an airplane where it held my attention enough that it was the activity I wanted to do instead of stitching and listening to a podcast I was in the middle of. I had intended to pod & stitch, but this ended up being a much more engaging option – which makes it difficult to evaluate overall. I can see the limitations, especially where the characters were flat vehicles for plot to arrive in the form of clumsy dialogue, but I was engaged nonetheless, surprised by the mystery, and remain curious about book two. This book isn’t a meal, but it is a very good snack.

– SB Sarah

It’s the Roaring Twenties. London’s bright young things are partying, Soho’s nightlife is buzzing and Augusta Peel is hiding in her basement.

She has a reason to hide there: it’s home to her Bloomsbury workshop where she repairs old, neglected books. After a busy time during the war, all Augusta wants is peace and quiet – even if it is routinely disturbed by the tube trains beneath her feet.

But events take a turn when Augusta agrees to chaperone 19-year-old Harriet Jones on a date. Failing to get her home on time, she ends up in a riotous nightclub. She can’t imagine the evening getting much worse when the police raid it. But then the murder happens.

Who shot Jean Taylor? An old acquaintance at Scotland Yard learns Augusta was near the murder scene and persuades her to help with his investigation. But how can a humble book repairer navigate Soho’s world of actresses, gangsters and theatre impresarios to discover the truth?

A new historical cozy mystery from the author of the Penny Green Victorian Mystery Series and Churchill & Pemberley Cozy Mystery Series.