Reviews

• I have a lot of time for Dandy Gilver, she is a very believable character. Catriona McPherson portrays the period - the 1920s - very well. All her books have engrossing plots.

• Excellent series of books. Good characters, picturesque descriptions of places, enough mystery to keep interest. I am glad there were several books available.

• This was the first Dandy Gilver mystery I've read and I really enjoyed it. I'm not a huge mystery reader but I do love me some Rex Stout and have read most of his mysteries. That said, I never got into many others but the titles and cover art of this series appealed to me. More importantly, as I read it, I appreciated the author's writing style and increasingly-complicated storyline. I was actually surprised at her daring and that was refreshing. This story may not be for the faint of heart but I was kind of amused by what she came up with, not to mention intrigued as the story progressed. If I can't guess the outcome by half to two-thirds of the way though, you've got me. I plan to go back and read the others in book form as this seems to be the only title available for Kindle. That's really too bad! This may not be totally relevant, but I do think this series (and Dandy Gilver as a detective/heroine) is far superior to Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs series. I point this out because there are many similaries between these two contemporary authors and period detectives. Maisie Dobbs may be the more interesting premise, and I do enjoy the post-WWI commentary and backstory, but the writing doesn't always hold up to the content. Winspear doesn't put much faith in her readers and feels a need to spell out every little thing, and for me, Maisie Dobbs doesn't quite come to life like Dandy Gilver. I get the impression that Catriona Mcpherson is having a lot more fun with her character(s) and that comes across to the reader. She also isn't trying quite so hard, with lots of adverbs like 'sagely' all over the place. I'm a fan of both and will probably read all the books in both series, so if you enjoy the Dandy Gilver mysteries, you'll likely also like Maisie Dobbs. However, this series is a slightly more enjoyable read!

• Three and a half stars. Our intrepid heroine and private investigator Dandy Gilver is summoned to Dunfermline to investigate the disappearance of Mirren Atkins, granddaughter of Dandy's client who owns Atkins Emporium store. But what she walks into is a multi-generational hotbed of lies and secrets with Mirren and her beau, Dugald Hepburn, grandson of the founder of House of Hepburn, hate rivals of Atkins Emporium. a real Romeo and Juliet romance, which sadly is fated to end just as badly. I struggled to get into this book, heck I started it two months ago and only read about two and a half chapters before putting it down, the cloying relationships, especially since there appeared to be three Mrs Atkins and one Miss Atkins to keep straight, all variously called by their own names or by their husband's names. Anyway, I picked it up again last night and got gripped by the death of poor Mirren on the day of Atkin Emporium's Anniversary when the great and the good had come to the store to celebrate. The only reason I gave this three and a half stars rather than four was because I had read something very similar to this plot (being deliberately vague) many years ago. It was either one of those family sagas that were so popular back in the 1970s like Catherine Cookson or Susan Howatch, or I recall one about several generations in New Orleans where one of the lovers drowned when the levee burst (I am going to have find out what that book was now). Anyway, that was a longwinded way of saying I suspected quite early what was going on. However, Hugh! OMG. Melted.

• I liked the writing, but the relationships got very complicated by the end. If you read this story, I recommend making a chart of the families.

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