Nobody's Sweetheart Now
Nobody's Sweetheart Now The First Lady Adelaide Mystery by Maggie Robinson Poisoned Pen Press Historical Fiction , Mystery & Thrillers Pub Date 13 Nov 2018
Review
What is more embarrassing than a cheating husband who dies while speeding along with his mistress? - one who comes back as a ghost, showing up at inopportune times providing irritating commentary and making you look quite mad. Not only does Lady Adelaide Compton have to deal with a corpse that inconveniently appears in her barn during a weekend dinner party, she also has to cope with the appearance of her charming ne’er do well husband’s ghost. Who amongst her guests (all with links to the victim) committed the crime? Scotland Yard sends Inspector Dev Hunter to investigate. Half Indian, all English and entirely handsome, Dev knows he has challenges ahead, including keeping his mind off the beautiful, if slightly peculiar Lady Adelaide.
Nobody’s Sweetheart Now is a charming throwback to the screwball mysteries popular in the 1930s. The dialogue is funny and comes across as natural, without the stilted formal feel that some historicals have. Situations are absurd at times but believably so. The chemistry between Dev and Adelaide is palpable, as is the lingering attachment between Adelaide and the ghostly Rupert. He’s definitely a cad but a charming one. I truly enjoyed this funny, fast paced cozy mystery and look forward to seeing what life and Maggie Robinson have in store for Lady Adelaide.
5 / 5
I received a copy of Nobody’s Sweetheart Now from the publisher and Netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review.
— Crittermom
Description
A delightful English cozy series begins in August 1924. Lady Adelaide Compton has recently (and satisfactorily) interred her husband, Major Rupert Charles Cressleigh Compton, hero of the Somme, in the family vault in the village churchyard. Rupert died by smashing his Hispano-Suiza on a Cotswold country road while carrying a French mademoiselle in the passenger seat. With the house now Addie's, needed improvements e in hand, and a weekend house party underway, how inconvenient of Rupert to turn up! Not in the flesh, but in—actually, as a—spirit. Rupert has to perform a few good deeds before becoming welcomed to heaven—or, more likely, thinks Addie, to hell. Before Addie can convince herself she's not completely lost her mind, a murder disrupts her careful seating arrangement. Which of her twelve houseguests is a killer? Her mother, the formidable Dowager Marchioness of Broughton? Her sister Cecilia, the born-again vegetarian? Her childhood friend and potential lover, Lord Lucas Waring? Rupert has a solid alibi as a ghost and an urge to detect. Enter Inspector Devenand Hunter from the Yard, an Anglo-Indian who is not going to let some barmy society beauty witnessed talking to herself derail his investigation. Something very peculiar is afoot at Compton Court and he's going to get to the bottom of it—or go as mad as its mistress trying.
