Poppy Redfern and the Midnight Murders

September 1, 2019
Edwardian specialist Arlen (Death of an Unsung Hero, 2018, etc.) leaps forward 25 years to showcase a dedicated wartime volunteer who learns that the real danger in her hometown is not from the enemy overseas. Little Buffenden was a quiet English village before World War II, but in the midst of the battle with the Nazis, the more immediate invasion is from the Yanks. Poppy Redfern and her grandparents have turned over their ancestral home, Reaches, to the American airmen known as the Midnight Raiders and moved temporarily to a smaller building on the property. Poppy, who serves as the Air Raid Precaution warden for the village, has a nighttime run-in with Lt. Griff O'Neal, one of the pilots, when each mistakes the other for the enemy. After that meet-cute, Poppy tries to focus on her business of enforcing blackout rules, but the other young women in the village are more attuned to the social benefits of so many visiting soldiers so eager for female companionship. In fact, village gossip suggests that one of the airmen has helped Doreen Newcombe get over her grief for her late fiance. After Doreen's body, strangled with a nylon stocking, is found in the churchyard, sleepy Little Buffenden is no longer safe, and Poppy's grandparents prevail upon her to accept Cpl. Sid Ritchie of the Home Guard as an escort. Although Poppy finds Sid tiresome, she agrees to please her grandparents. A second murder of one of the young women she's known all her life motivates Poppy to do her own detective work, with some help from her dog and the increasingly friendly Griff. The nighttime actions of a bird-watcher suspected of the murders, Poppy's discovery of a secret tunnel, a clue in the form of camphor, and her ambivalence about whether to accept Griff's suit lead to an unsurprising denouement featuring a suspect who's been under Poppy's nose all along. History, suspense, and an appealing heroine combine in a series debut that should attract war buffs and many others.

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September 9, 2019
Poppy Redfern, the narrator of this unremarkable series launch from Arlen (the Lady Montfort books) set in WWII England, leaves London, where she has trained as an air raid warden, for the town where she grew up, Little Buffenden, to serve as its first air raid warden. Her return coincides with the arrival of American fighter pilots—and a series of strangulation murders of attractive young women, starting with Doreen Newcombe. Newcombe was garroted with a pair of nylon stockings her American boyfriend had given her, making him the obvious suspect. Poppy, who isn’t so sure of his guilt, begins to play detective. Meanwhile, Poppy develops an American love interest of her own, Lt. Griff O’Neal, “the most handsome man I had ever seen in my life.” Like Charles Todd’s shell-shocked WWI veteran, Ian Rutledge, Poppy converses, if at a lighthearted level, with someone who isn’t real—the feisty heroine of the mystery novel she’s writing. Cozy readers will best appreciate this one. Fans of British home front mysteries will find nothing new. Agent: Kevan Lyon, Marsal Lyon Literary Agency.

October 15, 2019
Arlen, author of the Lady Montfort series, set in early-twentieth-century England, now moves to WWII, introducing a new heroine, spunky air-raid warden Poppy Redfern. Trained in London, Poppy has returned to her small village of Little Buffenden to patrol the countryside. Her family home has been requisitioned by the Americans for an airfield. Ambivalent feelings about the Yanks harden into suspicion, when two local girls are murdered. Poppy, who's developing a relationship with a flier, Griff, and writing a mystery of her own, finds clues and a plethora of suspects spilling in her direction. Arlen deserves several thumbs up for this one. Her depiction of British country life in wartime will take readers back to movies like Mrs. Miniver (which has a cameo here). But along with capturing the ambience of the era, Arlen also has the gift of keeping the reader guessing. Just as one likely suspect steps to the fore, another pushes him or her out of the way. A fine start to a new series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)