A Sinister Service

December 7, 2020
Set in 1920, Maxwell’s enjoyable sixth a Lady and a Lady’s Maid mystery (after 2020’s A Silent Stabbing) takes Lady Phoebe Renshaw, her three siblings, and her maid, Eva Huntford, to Staffordshire, the hub of England’s thriving porcelain trade. Phoebe and her siblings are visiting the prestigious Crown Lily factory to commission a tea set for their grandparents’ anniversary when the company’s head designer, Ronald Mercer, is found dead in a grinder. The murder gains personal significance for the Renshaws with the arrest of Mercer’s son, who was at Eton with Phoebe’s brother, until the boy’s father forced him to withdraw and learn the pottery trade. Another suspect is Percy Bateman, Lily’s junior designer, who coveted the victim’s position. As part of the sleuthing effort, Eva becomes a part-time apprentice to Lily’s head of china painting, Moira Wickham, who resented Mercer’s refusal to let a woman design. Distinctive characters complement the well-crafted plot. Maxwell brings the era’s class and gender constraints to life in this intelligent historical. Agent: Evan Marshall, Evan Marshall Agency.

November 1, 2020
An aristocrat and her maid get involved in yet another murder mystery in the aftermath of World War I. Lady Phoebe Renshaw and her siblings, Julia, Amelia, and Fox, have come to the Crown Lily pottery to commission a new set of china for their grandparents' anniversary, and they're greeted by owner Jeffrey Tremaine and head designer Ronald Mercer. During their tour of the factory, 15-year-old Fox runs into his schoolmate Trent Mercer, who'd vanished from Eton. It turns out his father forced him to come home and learn the pottery business. Although they're staying at nearby Lyndale Park, the estate that had belonged to pregnant Julia's recently deceased husband, Phoebe, Amelia, and Fox aren't welcomed by their sister's in-laws, who are unhappy about the prospect of Julia's unborn child's inheriting the estate they'd had hopes of sharing. At Crown Lily, both Phoebe and her devoted maid, Eva Huntford, pick up undercurrents of dislike among several people, including the head designer, a younger colleague whose design the Renshaws favor, and the woman who runs the painting department, whose considerable talents have been overlooked because of her sex. Still, when the elder Mercer is found mangled by machinery, the police seize on Trent as the killer. Phoebe and Eva are no strangers to murder, and all the Renshaws believe Trent is innocent and aim to help prove it. Phoebe and Eva put themselves in danger asking questions someone doesn't want answered. A revealing look at the pottery business melds nicely with a classic 1920s-style mystery.

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