One Bear's Opinion -- Book Review

Murder at Hatfield House by Amanda Carmack

This was the second book my housemate chose to read for the Save Our Cozies Read-a-Thon. We finished two books in just under 24 hours. It was a fun event and I hope to participate in another one. There was a bonus for me; I won a copy of Guilty as Cinnamon. I am excited to read it, but it’s in the US and I’m in Australia, so that will have to wait a couple of months until my housemate and I can crack that one open. Sometimes it’s hard to be an impatient bear.

My housemate chose to read Murder at Hatfield House because she had read several other mystery series set in Elizabethan England, a couple of which feature either Queen Elizabeth I or her advisors as the amateur investigators. It was very hard to read this one without comparing it to the other series we read. I am not going to lie and say I was not comparing it to my person favorite, Karen Harper’s Elizabeth I Mysteries, I absolutely was comparing this book to that series. The portrayal of Princess Elizabeth was similar in both, but the tone of Murder at Hatfield House was much darker. I noticed it and though that it might actually be too dark in tone to truly be called a cozy. I also found the descriptions of the murders, to be too graphic to be a true cozy, but that may be down to my interpretation of the definition of the genre.

I thought beginning the series before Princess Elizabeth became Queen makes it easy to continue the series, and lays the historical groundwork without having to build it into the books as plot exposition. That was a clever way of weaving a great deal of the real world history that shaped the Elizabethan era into the books without the author appear to be talking down to her readers or having to explain too much of the who, what, and why in later books. It was a complicated time in history, both for the royals and the non-royals alike and anything set during the periods would require at least some explanation and backstory. Beginning the series where it did means the explanation and backstory are seamlessly woven into the overall narrative.

One of the things that I have begun to notice in read so many mystery series is that editors rarely allow extraneous information to be left in the story. That means that all the mentions of things that were not necessary to mention are important. The color of the cloak was mentioned early on in the book, and that meant it was important. If the color was not important, it would not have been mentioned. Unlike in real life, trivial details are only mentioned in books, movies, and television shows if they are important to the story. Knowing that takes a bit of the fun of figuring out the mystery on my own from the book. But even so, watching it unfold and watching the amateur investigator figure out is still quite fun.

Overall, Murder on Hatfield House was an enjoyable book, and a perfect on to read on a cold, grey, windy, rainy weekend. I am looking forward to the rest of the series.

One Bear’s Opinion: Four glasses of mulled wine with a plate of fruitcake slices

Happy Reading Everyone,
Oliver