The Mitford Scandal

November 11, 2019
Heavy-handed foreshadowing mars bestseller Fellowes’s third mystery featuring the real-life Mitford family (after 2018’s Bright Young Dead). In 1928, two years after former criminal Louisa Cannon left the employ of the Mitfords, for whom she worked as a nursery maid, Louisa returns to service with the Guinness family. Louisa crosses paths with her now grown former charges, Nancy and Diana Mitford, at a party her employers are hosting in London, which ends tragically with a servant falling to her death in an apparent accident. After Diana marries Bryan Guinness in 1929, Louisa joins her as a ladies’ maid, a job that takes her to Paris, where she runs across her sometime love interest, Det. Sgt. Guy Sullivan, who’s on the trail of another servant, who disappeared after working in the Guinness home the night of the fatal gala. While in Paris, one of Bryan’s friends dies, also apparently accidentally. More deaths follow. Thin characterizations, especially of Diana, who would go on to marry British fascist Oswald Mosley, don’t enhance a lumbering plot. Series fans will be disappointed. Agent: Caroline Michel, Peters Fraser and Dunlop (U.K.).

November 15, 2019
Louisa Cannon, still in the orbit of the inimitable Mitford sisters in 1928 London, finds herself caught in their mysteries for the third time--and longing to be reunited with her partner in sleuthing, Guy Sullivan of the CID. Since leaving her job as a servant with the Mitford family (Bright Young Dead, 2018), Louisa's been scraping by. One odd job finds her serving at a grand party in the London Season, where wealthy, debonair Bryan Guinness is wooing Diana Mitford when, suddenly and horribly, a maid peering at the glamorous scene falls through a skylight to her death. It seems a tragic accident, but Louisa had noticed Rose Morgan, another maid, accepting a mysterious packet from a rough-mannered stranger at the back door. When Rose disappears after the party, newly promoted Guy Sullivan refuses to let the matter drop. In a stroke of good fortune, Diana offers Louisa a position as her lady's maid, and they set off together on Diana and Bryan's honeymoon in Paris. Guy, acting on a tip about Rose, follows a hunch and his heart to find Louisa in Paris despite his own engagement to another woman. His presence is both a relief and a complication for Louisa, for he appears the morning after the sudden death of Shaun Mulloney, one of the Bright Young Things who attend Bryan and Diana. Was his death merely an allergic reaction mixed with excessive drink, or was it something more sinister, perhaps arranged by his jealous wife? The gendarmes think it's a case of allergic reaction; Guy and Louisa find only traces of Rose; and Diana, Bryan, and their friends, accompanied by Louisa, embark on a trip to Venice. But this adventure is marred by tragedy as well, as yet another Bright Young Thing dies of opium overdose. And this time, Nancy Mitford is placed under arrest. A richly detailed period piece whose implausible solution is outweighed by its deft weaving of historical fact and imagined intrigue.

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Starred review from January 24, 2020

In the third entry in her excellent series focusing on the colorful Mitford family (The Bright Young Dead; The Mitford Murders), Fellowes brings to life the heady, turbulent times of 1920s-1930s Britain and Europe. World War I has ended, and World War II has not yet begun, and readers know that the Mitfords and their compatriots are blithely living out the last days of an era. Narrator Louisa Cannon, lady's maid to Diana Mitford, astutely chronicles the travels and travails of the Mitford household. She accompanies Diana, the most beautiful of the six daughters, to Europe when she marries Guinness heir Bryan. Louisa proves to be a superior amateur detective who solves seemingly unrelated murders--one in England, and another in Paris. Tensions abound, as the leisure classes disdain others, including Louisa, who clearly possesses superior intelligence and social acumen. Indeed, her ability to relate to individuals from different social strata enables her to solve the murders.

VERDICT It's hardly surprising that Fellowes, author of Downton Abbey companion books and niece of Downton creator Julian Fellowes, has skillfully captured the essence of an era and a family. Perfect for admirers of Rhys Bowen's "Royal Spyness Mystery" series. [See Prepub Alert, 7/8/19.]--Lynne Maxwell, West Virginia Univ. Coll. of Law Lib., Morgantown

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