eARC review ~ Murder in the Scottish Hills

 

Received this from Netgalley for a fair and honest review.

When Maud McIntyre and her lady’s maid Daisy travel into the Scottish Highlands, the last thing they expect to find is a body on the train… Will these keen amateur sleuths stop a murderer in his tracks?

Edinburgh, 1911: When Maud McIntyre receives a letter from a maid called Rose, sharing her suspicions that something strange is happening in the house where she works, she and her assistant Daisy immediately travel to the Highlands to investigate.

But as they are changing trains, the body of a man falls from the carriage right in front of them, a bullet in his head. Maud and Daisy can’t believe it – they’ve waited ages for a new case, and now one has literally landed in front of them! And when the local police rule the death as a tragic accident, the pair have no choice but to investigate what they believe is a murder…

Arriving in the Scottish village, Maud and Daisy go undercover to begin their hunt for the murderer, while also investigating the strange behaviour of Rose’s employer, a local art dealer. As they begin to piece together the chain of events, Maud and Daisy wonder whether the cases might be linked. Is it possible the man on the train was killed to cover up something in the village? And, if so, who would do such a thing?

When a local artist is found murdered, Maud and Daisy become convinced the two cases are connected. Searching for the link between the deaths, will Maud and Daisy solve the case before another mysterious murder takes place?

Maud and Daisy in the first book, solved their first couple cases and now feel they have successfully started their detective agency, but they are not getting any business. During a dinner party at a friends house they were discussing the sufferage movement and an editor for a newspaper was interested in having her write a column about her opinions. This leads to her get a lot of mail from women who wanted her opinion on things. Maud working for the paper was helping her and her friend Daisy be able to keep the detective agency open in hopes of some business. 

While looking through the letters she finds one from a young lady named Rose who is working for an art dealer and she is worried that her boss might be doing some bad things and wanted to know what she should do. She really liked her job but didn't want to work for a criminal. 

Maud decides that they should meet this young lady and see if they could help, even if it was probably for free because the young maid couldn't afford to pay them. She was making enough money from the paper to be able to do a job without pay and maybe it would help them in the long run for their detective business. 

On the way there by train they end up finding the dead body of a man who lives in the same town they were headed too and of course curiosity gets to them. They find out from Rose that she thinks her boss is selling forgeries and they start investigating that, but can't forget about the dead body, so also look into that. They are staying at a hotel where they even get into a small investigation there. 

I really like Maud and Daisy as characters. I also like Lord Urquhart and hope he becomes the love interest for Maud. That being said I also thought that storyline was very slow moving and I am not sure if it's because there are so many different things they are trying to solve or if I just found it boring but I didn't like it quite as much a I did book one. I also think the author is putting in modern feminist thought in a historical with Daisy and that just makes me roll my eyes but hey that is my opinion. 

I will be trying the next one as like I said I do like Maud and Daisy. If you like historical mysteries you might enjoy this series, so give it a try. 

3 stars