Gunpowder Plot
A Daisy Dalrymple Mystery, No 15

by Carola Dunn

     Now six months pregnant, Daisy is going to spend 5 November with her old school friend and near neighbor Gwen Tyndall.  The Tyndall family have lived in Edge Manor for centuries, and are locally renowned for holding a particularly impressive Guy Fawkes Night celebration. Daisy has come to write about it for a magazine, and walks into the middle of a family row.  Sir Harold Tyndall is not an easy man to live with, and he is protesting about Gwen’s boyfriend, as well as his son and heir Jack’s passion for aviation.  When the festivities are at their height, Sir Harold and a visiting Australian are found shot dead.

After a sojourn at the seaside, here is that most classic location for this type of mystery, a house party.  This is another good story with plenty of red herrings and much grilling of suspects and witnesses as the suspicion falls on first one character, then another.  It is easy to get involved with the characters and to care about what happens to them, which is a plus, and as ever, Ms Dunn’s country house backdrop rings true to the period.  If you like your mysteries well-plotted and tortuous (as they are meant to be, in my opinion) you will find this one fits the bill.

Reviews of other titles in this series

Death at Wentwater Court, 1
The Winter Garden Mystery, 2
Requiem For A Mezzo, 3
Murder on the Flying Scotsman, 4
Damsel in Distress, 5
Dead In The Water, 6
Styx and Stones, 7
Rattle His Bones, 8 [review 1] [review 2]
To Davy Jones Below, 9
The Case of the Murdered Muckraker, 10
Mistletoe and Murder, 11
Die Laughing, 12
A Mourning Wedding, 13
Fall of a Philanderer, 14
Gunpowder Plot, 15
The Black Ship, 17
Sheer Folly, 18
Anthem For Doomed Youth, 19
Gone West, 20