Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: The Edinburgh Murders by Catriona McPherson

 

Catriona McPherson is a native Scot living on the U.S. West Coast, where she turns out book after book, winning award after award for them. In 2005 she began a historical mystery series set in Scotland about a bored middle-aged matron which so far has 16 titles. She started writing a contemporary series about a Scot in California in 2018, with seven titles at this time, and she’s written nearly a dozen stand-alone crime fiction novels. Not satisfied with all this, in 2022 she launched a third series set in post-war Edinburgh about a welfare worker in the newly formed National Health Service.

The second book about Helen Crowther, The Edinburgh Murders, was released by Hodder & Stoughton in the UK 10 April 2025 and is scheduled for release in the US on 29 July. Helen is still grappling with the fallout of her first case, in which she stepped outside the role society assigned to her which earned her a reputation as a bit of a menace. She continues to provide assistance to the working folks of Fountainbridge ward who live in impossibly crowded conditions and make do on the slimmest of means.

Helen is at the Caledonia Crescent Baths, the public baths used by those whose housing arrangements do not stretch to a bathroom, assisting one of her clients when one of the attendants tries to roust a customer who has overstayed his time and instead finds a dead man floating in the bath. Both bath attendants and the neighborhood constable all faint or try to, leaving Helen to call Dr. Sarah Strasser, the doctor she works for. It was clearly not a natural death and Dr. Strasser brings the police in, who don’t understand how the murder was committed. Another equally odd death crops up a few days later, leaving Helen puzzling over them. The police are mostly worrying about an escapee from the local psychiatric hospital and have too much to do to connect the two deaths, so Helen feels free to investigate a bit on her own.

In addition to the unusual murders, the reader is given a bird’s-eye view into daily life of mid-century Edinburgh. McPherson has thoughtfully included a glossary of slang and colloquialisms in common use then. The character of Helen is as original as the setting. Her trailblazing role as a working woman in a new organization sets her apart from her family and threatens ties she is anxious to maintain. An absorbing story in a fresh place and time with a large dollop of social history, which readers of historical mysteries will find especially appealing.

·         Publisher: ‎Hodder & Stoughton (UK release 10 April 2025, US release 29 July 2025)

·         Language: ‎English

·         Hardcover: ‎304 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎1399720449

·         ISBN-13: ‎978-1399720441

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4jmJ6Ys

 

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2025

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Aubrey's Nye Hamilton Reviews: The Witching Hour by Catriona McPherson

The sixteenth book in the Dandy Gilver historical mystery series by Catriona McPherson is scheduled for release in the UK on 2 May 2024 and in the US on 3 September 2024. I had the great good fortune to receive an advance copy of the story so I don’t have to wait until September.

The series began shortly after the end of World War I in 1922, with Dandy the epitome of a bored housewife, and has progressed chronologically through the social and economic upheaval of the interwar years. The Witching Hour (Hodder & Stoughton/Mobius) takes place in spring of 1939, with a second war imminent, to the great fear of Dandy whose two sons are now the right age to be called up.

Hugh Gilver’s 60^th birthday was being observed with all the pomp it deserved. The family and close friends were gathered for an enormous feast and the family cook had done herself proud. Of especial interest to Dandy is the guest her younger son had invited. To all appearances Dandy was to acquire a second daughter-in-law. Dandy’s close friend Daisy Esslemont was there alone, her husband Silas had pleaded a previous unbreakable engagement, and Daisy was peeved about it. Silas has a long history of philandering and Daisy has tolerated much from her sadly deficient husband.

In the night the telephone unexpectedly rang. The police in a remote village are looking for Daisy. Silas has been found dead, and they think Daisy has killed him. Dandy is happy to advise them Daisy was sound asleep in Dandy’s guest bedroom. But on inquiry, Dandy learns both Daisy and Dandy’s automobile are gone. She and Alec Osborne, Dandy’s investigative partner, tear off to the village where Silas was found and hope that Daisy is not there.

The village turns out to be an odd little place with hints of otherworldliness and witchcraft. No one is especially helpful but Dandy is desperate to clear Daisy and Alec, who had his own reasons for disliking Silas, is up for the challenge.

I am once again reminded that this series is not cozy, despite blurbs that say otherwise. Inevitably there are serious underlying issues at play in each book, even if perhaps the overall premise is lighthearted and improbable. The UK is facing the advent of war once again, and this time Dandy knows she may lose her sons. The memory of the earlier war is all too clear and her entire generation is devastated at the thought of a repetition. Dandy also has the opportunity to review her very fortunate marriage compared to that of her friend Daisy. While Hugh is boring, he is also kind and would never humiliate her the way Silas mistreated Daisy. The contrast emphasizes how little freedom women had then to improve their circumstances. A bad marriage was something to be borne, not discarded.

The resolution was entirely reasonable, considering the life that Silas led, but I found the fact so many others suffered from his thoughtlessness deeply sad.

For fans of social history the bits about proper dinner table and drawing room behavior are fascinating. The conversation between Dandy and Hugh about their potential new daughter-in-law reveal the conventions about appropriate marriages in the landed gentry and just how much those conventions had changed.

A fine addition to a solid historical series. Recommended.

 

 

·         Publisher: ‎Mobius (September 3, 2024)

·         Language: ‎English

·         Hardcover: ‎320 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎1399720392

·         ISBN-13: ‎978-1399720397

 

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4dfrw6s

 

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2024

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

The Reading Room: Scot Mist (#4 Last Ditch Mystery) by Catriona McPherson: Reading Room Review

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Lesa's Book Critiques: Winners & A Humorous Mystery Giveaway

Lesa's Book Critiques: Catriona McPherson, An Interview

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Lesa's Book Critiques: Scot & Soda by Catriona McPherson

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Mysteristas Blog: Low Down Dirty Vote

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Lesa's Latest Contest: This week's giveaway - The Scottish Connection

This week, I'm giving away 2 mysteries with a Scottish connection -
Catriona McPherson's Scot Free and Molly MacRae's Scones and Scoundrels.
Details on my blog, https://www.lesasbookcritiques.blogspot.com.  Entries
from the U.S. only, please.


-- 
Lesa Holstine
lesa.holstine@gmail.com

http://www.lesasbookcritiques.blogspot.com

Monday With Kaye: "Dandy Gilver and the Proper Treatment of Bloodstains" by Catriona McPherson

Mondays mean it is time for “Monday With Kaye” and this week Kaye George reviews Dandy Gilver and the Proper Treatment of Bloodstains. Apparently my preferred treatment of burning them out with a flamethrower is not appropriate. Who knew?

Dandy Gilver and the Proper Treatment of Bloodstains by Catriona McPherson

This mystery is amusing in a reserved, Scottish way. It's the fifth in the Dandy Gilver series, published in this country in 2012, but 2009 in Great Britain.

 Dandy, an aristocrat from a bygone age, 1926 according to the back cover text, is actually named Dandelion Dahlia Gilver. Her family inhabits Gilverton, but that place isn't seen in this novel. Instead, she spends her time at another aristocratic mansion, as a lady's maid. She takes an undercover assignment for the mistress of the house, Walburga Balfour, called Lollie. Lollie needs to stop her husband from killing her, as she tells Dandy he's been threatening to do. Lollie is doubting her sanity and needs confirmation, and her life saved.

She tells how her husband, Pip, has been whispering into her ear snatches of a gruesome Robert Browning poem about strangling his mistress. Dandy must embark on this adventure without her good friend, Alec, as she immerses herself in the workings of a place with the incredible number of twelve servants. When Pip himself turns up dead, most of the servants are suspects, along with Lollie and some others.

A flavor of the times is helped along with the character of Harry, the valet and the resident “Red.” Other eddies and whirlpools of relationships lurk under the surface below stairs. But there are upstairs suspects as well, and Dandy faces the potentially fatal problem of maintaining her disguise in front of the servants, any of whom may have murdered their master.

Reviewed by Kaye George, author of Choke for Suspense Magazine