Glamour & Mystery: The Marjorie McClelland Mystery Series by Amy Patricia Meade

I often wonder if I was born in the correct era. If I could wear fancy dresses, hats and mandatory red lipstick every day I totally would.  But, not just any kind of fancy dress. I love a dress with fluttery sleeves, fringe and sass. When I swoon over fashion of years gone by, I'm always drawn to the fashion of the 1920s and 1930s. So, when my sister (a super cool librarian chick) presented me with The Marjorie McClelland Mystery Series by Amy Patricia Meade, I was elated! The best part? They were freeeee because she went diving in the discard bin at work and found three of the four books from the series.  As soon as I looked them up on Amazon I knew they were going to be a total hit and I was right.

As I said, these books came from the discard bin at the library where my awesome sister works.  Previous to finding the books she was unaware that employees could take books from the discard bin home. One day I got a text message from her informing me she had found a mystery series that I was sure to love. She also sent photos of the covers and I was hooked on the cover art alone. That's nothing new.....I'm always a sucker for good cover art. The only catch was book two of the series was not included.  I decided to read the first book to see if I liked the series at all before I committed to buying a used copy of book two on Amazon.  As you may have guessed, book one went very well, and here we are talking about the series as a whole.

First of all, you have to read all four books in the correct order to capture the entire story.  Each book has a different mystery, but the ongoing story line is not tied up until book four.  These books reminded me of "Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries," a wonderful Australian TV series on Netflix. I've watched all three seasons multiple times and still love to figure out who was the mysterious murderer.  Really fantastic series with impeccable costumes that fit the historical period perfectly.

Our characters in the Marjorie McClelland series are: Marjorie McClelland, a published authoress-turned detective (in her mind anyway); Robert Jameson, the actual police detective; and Creighton Ashcroft, the dashing English millionaire who has recently moved to town and becomes Marjorie's unofficial, but official-when-needed book editor. Creighton also has feelings for Marjorie, but Marjorie has feelings for Detective Jameson, so things get interesting....to say the least.

In book one, "The Million Dollar Baby," Creighton discover a human skeleton on his newly-purchased property. He also knows the house experienced a suspicious death of the previous owner many years prior and he is determined to get to the bottom of it all.  In the midst of this, there are a number of people who are out to destroy evidence in all its forms.  We are also introduced to Emily Patterson who is the boarding house owner where Creighton stays while his home is under investigation. Mrs. Patterson's boarding house is a few doors down from Marjorie's home so they frequently spend time together.  Marjorie is an orphan so she looks to Mrs. Patterson as a motherly figure.  The mystery in book one is gripping.  One thing I seriously loved about these books is how well the author desguised the guilty party. This is one of the main reasons why I love "Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries" as well. Both have guilty suspects who are most unexpected. I was totally blindsided with the guilty party in every single one of the books!

Book two, "Ghost of a Chance," was my absolute favorite mystery of the four. It was ultra complicated and when everything was revealed, I sat on my couch and yelled, "are you kidding me?!" The nice thing about books two through four is they are much shorter than book one.  Not sure why the author did that, but I was glad the other three books didn't take as long to read. Even though these books have to be read in order, book two was just fantastic. The mystery is pretty creepy, if I do say so myself, and was very difficult to pin point who did it.  The way the author describes every detail is so great and I could see the settings and costumes in my mind.

Book three, "Shadow Waltz," was probably the most gnarly of mysteries. I'm kind of a wimp when it comes to blood and guts being overly described and this mystery included a dismembered human. The mystery itself and the identity of the guilty party was totally crazy and I was dumbfounded when all the pieces came together. In the midst of the gnarly mystery, the love interest between Marjorie and Creighton is in its cutest moments. This element totally offset the details that made my stomach turn a bit.

Book four, "Black Moonlight," is the only book with a different location.  If I give toooo much away you won't look them up to find out more.  Suffice it to say, Marjorie and Creighton find themselves in the middle of a mystery that now includes some of Creighton's crazy family members! This book felt like an adaptation of the board game, "Clue." In the book there were lots of suspects due to it being a large family gathering, there were plenty of prospective murder weapons laying around and ample rooms to commit a murder. I thought that it might make it more challenging to keep the mystery interesting with a secluded location and only family members, but I was happily wrong.  The guilty party was still someone I least expected and I loved it! After I finished each book (sometimes in the middle of the night) I would text my sister and share my delight on how fabulous the book had been.  When I finished book four I was kind of sad that it was all over because it was like I was transported to 1939 with Marjorie and Creighton and I loved it.

My recommended reading group would be age 16 and above.  It's a PG read with some graphic descriptions of dead bodies and some suspenseful elements.  One of the best parts of these books, other than what I previously shared, is the sex is briefly implied and that's it. I thought it was totally appropriate with the social customs of the era and I appreciated that the author stuck to that instead of sexualizing the story prematurely for the sake of captivating readers.

The moral of the story: Never judge a book by its cover and never judge the neighbors by their outfits, fancy car or number of house staff member. Murderers exist in every class.  Oh, and never travel without red lipstick. It makes a damn good statement when needed.

Happy reading, my amazing, geeky lovelies!
-R

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