Laetitia Rodd and the Case of the Wandering Scholar is the second in the series, but I felt that this worked well as a standalone. I read this as a standalone, not initially realising that this was part of a series. It was an interesting mystery set in the 1850s. There are plenty of twists and turns to keep you guessing. and a wide array of characters. This was an enjoyable read but felt as though it dragged towards the end and was unnecessarily long. It could have been reduced by around 100 pages and could have been far more enjoyable.

This is the second book in this series and I'm really warming to Laetitia Rodd and her housekeeper. I wish the author could write more quickly as I would love to see a little romance in Laetitia's life. A very intelligent, compassionate and able heroine. Definitely one of the more superior historical mysteries out there.

A Victorian (soft) crime novel with a strong woman lead. This was a lovely read, although it would feel really long at times. The story has many different layers that all tie in with each other. It was mostly well constructed though sometimes it was a bit convoluted to read. The ideologies of the characters were frustrating at times, but it was reminiscent of the era.
I didn't realise this was part of a series, but it reads well as a stand alone book.

Laetitia Rodd is a fiesty widow living in the aftermath of the death of her beloved Matt. When a wealthy man, on his deathbed requests Mrs Rodd's assistance to locate his estranged brother, she sojourns a while in oxford with her lovely friends, Authur and Rachel Somer's (whom she played match maker for).
And this is the basis for an intricate and well laid story, full of interesting and intermingled characters. When Mr Somer's himself is found murdered, Mrs Rodd is at her finest, uncovering secrets and befriending people who have more secrets than Mrs Rodd knows what to do with.

I very much like Laetitia and her relationship with her brother. I found them intrepid and humourous and Mrs Rodd manages to do all of her 'detective' work while remaining the consumate 19th century lady. She's polite and decorous and yet has a knack for seeing things other people miss.

I felt the story might be a little longer than it needed to be buth given the intricacies of the arc, a shorter telling might have been left wanting. Overall though, a sweet and colourful mystery, full of intrigue and personality.

4.5 stars
This was an enthralling read. It was told in the first person by Laetitia Rodd, a 53 year widow. It was written in an engaging style. Her brother Fred, a barrister, was quite a colourful character and he did make me chuckle. Laetitia, worked, on occasions as an investigator and it is this work that her story is based on. Laetitia knows an amazing amount of people, which she calls upon in her investigations. She comes into contact with Mr, Blackbeard from Scotland Yard, they have a mutual professional respect for each other’s work. There are many interesting secondary characters in this story and a number of twists and turns before the conclusion. The action takes place in London and Oxfordshire. It will keep you guessing. I hadn’t read the first in the series but this can be read as a standalone. I received a copy and have voluntarily reviewed it. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Murder,mystery,religion and a middle aged female slueth all go together to make an interesting and intriguing story. I like the characters.

'Laetitia Rodd and the Case of the Wandering Scholar' is the second book in this series by Kate Saunders. I somehow missed the first one (not sure how - this is right up my street) but I will be amending that situation as soon as possible! It did not seem to matter that I had not read the first book as I thoroughly enjoyed this as a stand-alone novel.

Laetitia Rodd is the 53 year old widow of a clergyman who has built a bit of a reputation for amateur detective work. Having fallen on slightly hard times since the death of her husband, she resides in genteel poverty in Hampstead with her landlady and friend, Mary Bentley. This book, set in 1851, sees Laetitia trying to find a scholar who left Oxford and went to live in the woods - 'off grid' we would call it now, so whatever is the Victorian equivalent! However, that turns out to be the very start of her adventures as the plot thickens with every turn.

This book is utterly charming. I was beguiled from the first page by the lively, resourceful and intelligent heroine and loved the way that she called upon her network of clergymen to help her - a very genteel way of ensuring she has intelligence sources and a place to stay in vicarages across the country, wherever her adventures take her! I also really liked the supporting characters, especially Laetitia's cheeky brother. The setting is well done and the plotting clever - I have only held off from five stars because I did guess the ending. It's a great ending, but didn't have the suspense and final twist I would have liked because I got there (just) before Laetitia.

Overall, this is a lovely cosy crime novel with an interesting Victorian setting and plenty of heart. It will pull you along until the end and Laetitia is excellent company.

Three years ago I read a book with the words A Laetitia Rodd Mystery on the cover, and I wrote:

<i>I was sorry when the story was over; but I’m very glad that this is the first book of a series, and I’m looking forward to meeting Laetitia and her family and friends again.</i>

I looked out for a second book but it didn’t appear and I had pretty much given up hope when I saw this book bearing those same words.

It was lovely to step back into a world and feel completely at home, even though it had been a long time since my last visit.

Laetitia Rodd was the widow of an archdeacon and, as she had limited means, she had taken lodgings with Mrs Mary Bentley, and they had become good friends.

Her younger brother, Frederick Tyson, was one of London’s most celebrated criminal barristers, and he had come up with a plan that would help both of them. He sometimes employed her to carry out ‘special investigations’, knowing that ladies could move in circles that gentlemen could not, and that they could find out things that no gentleman could ever find out for himself.

In 1851, a wealthy businessman made a request that would draw Mrs Rodd into a most unusual investigation. Jacob Welland was dying of consumption and he wanted somebody to find the brother he had not seen for fifteen years and to put a letter into his hands, in the hope that he could speak to him once more, to put things right between them after a long estrangement that he had come to realise was his fault.

The circumstances were unusual.

Joshua Welland was an Oxford scholar; quite brilliant, but terribly eccentric. After the schism with his brother, he had gradually withdrawn from his college. He had spent more and more time out in the countryside, until the day came when he failed to return. There had been a number if sightings over that years; and a friend had once spotted him in a gypsy camp, where it was said that he was doing great work, and that when he made it public the world would marvel.

Mrs Rodd knew a young clergyman with a living in the area, his wife was a dear friend – and she had introduced them – so she made arrangements to pay them a visit.

That made me think of Patricia Wentworth’s Miss Silver, who always seemed to have a connection of some kind anywhere she might go; and, though the two ladies are generations apart and had very different characters, they had much in common. They were both able to apply skills they had gained in previous occupations to their investigations, to handle people well and find things out, to make logical deductions and then to act calmly and sensibly ….

Mrs Rodd investigated and searched carefully and, though she wasn’t able to put the letter into the missing man’s hands, she was able to return to London secure in the knowledge that it would reach him; and Jacob Welland, who was very frail and near the end of his life, was very happy with the results she achieved for him.

That wasn’t the end though; and when news of a suspicious death reached her, Mrs Rodd knew that she had to travel to Oxford and investigate again.

I won’t say too much about the story, but I will say that the plot had many interesting strands and that it was very well constructed. It was of its time, but it told a story that the great writers of the age could never have told.

I caught echoes of some of those authors, and I was particularly pleased when I spotted what I suspected were references to Anthony Trollope’s Barsetshire, and even more pleased when my expectations were subverted. I must mention the bishop’s wife, who was viewed with trepidation by many in the diocese. I thought of Mrs Proudie, but when Mrs Rodd asked this lady for assistance she was concerned and she was very helpful. As a friendship developed between the pair, she explained that she didn’t enjoy the role she was expected to play, but she loved her husband and played her part to the very best of her ability for his sake.

The story drew in a wonderfully rich range of characters and settings; and there was always something to hold my interest and something to make me think.

I identified the murderer just a little before the end of the book, but I didn’t work out everything, and I was very pleased to realise that this was the kind of book that had much more to its resolution than catching the criminal and explaining everything.

This second Laetitia Rodd mystery was a lovely progression from the first; and I hope that there will be many more.

This is the wonderful second in the 53 year old Laetitia Rodd series, set in the Victorian era by Kate Sauders. located in London, and in this addition, Oxford. A clergyman's daughter, Rodd is the impoverished childless widow of an Archdeacon, living with her confidante and landlady, Mrs Bentley, with a famous criminal barrister brother, the irreverent Frederick Tyson, with his chaotic household of 11 children. It is Frederick who is the source of the cases she takes on, and which provide a welcome additional income that Rodd desperately needs. The 40 year old Jacob Welland is a wealthy man dying of consumption and his dying wish is to see his younger brother, Joshua, a man he has not seen for a decade after falling out over a woman, Hannah Laurie, and to whom he wishes to bequeath his vast fortune. The elusive philosopher Joshua was at Gabriel College in Oxford, but abruptly left after making the reasoned decision to leave behind the modern world to wander as a ragged scholar in Oxford's countryside, and there have been numerous recent sightings of him.

With time against her, Rodd departs for Oxford, making use of her extensive church contacts to stay with Arthur Somers and his wife, Rachel, with every intention of loudly and persistently letting the locals know of her mission to ensure words reaches Joshua as soon as possible. She encounters a wide and disparate range of characters, such as the philanthropic and wealthy Daniel Arden who has gone out of his way to do good works and help the poor in the district, and Henry Barton, an invaluable source of help to Arthur in his religious duties. Arthur had recently listened to the death bed confession of Tom Goodly, a confession that has set off rumours locally, and he spends a huge amount of time at a controversial monastery. Rodd is concerned and worried about the Somers marriage, a union in which she played a hand in engineering, and finds herself amidst a tangled nest of intrigue and stories of gold. Joshua is a hard man to get hold of, and Rodd finds herself caught in a series of murders that she works with Inspector Blackbeard of Scotland Yard to get to the bottom of, in the search for a clever killer.

Saunders writes a delightful and twisted historical murder mystery, with a wonderful central character in Laetitia, a determined and resourceful woman with a deep religious faith and sense of morality. She is often completely convinced of the righteousness of her actions and interventions in the affairs of others, but here is forced to learn a little humility as she sees she has made errors in the past. Furthermore, her judgemental attitudes on the morality of the others she is surrounded by, has her beginning to question her humanity as she softens her position. This is a brilliantly entertaining historical series, with a complex, well plotted, and compelling mystery at the heart of the novel, set in an era where the poor and outcasts of a desperately unequal society find ' every door is locked with gold, and opens but to golden keys'. I look forward with great anticipation to the next in the series. Many thanks to Bloomsbury for an ARC.

It is nigh on 3 years since I was last with Laetitia Rodd when I discovered the first novel and then hoped for more so I was more than delighted when I got the chance to read and the review the second one. I hope there will be more. 

So what do you need to know about Laetitia Rodd? A fifty something widow of an archdeacon who is kind of down on her luck financially. She lives with her landlady Mrs Benton, one time landlady of the well known poet John Keats and also Laetitia's friend and confidante. 

To earn some sort of existence, Laetitia takes on private investigations normally with the advice and help of her brother, Frederick a criminal barrister who spends a lot of time avoiding his hom, wife and eleven children!

Laetitia is called to see Jacob Welland who make a last dying request to find his brother, Joshua so they can be reconciled after 15 years of not speaking.

But who has seen Joshua Welland and are all the sightings true?

To help her find out, Laetitia seeks out a couple from her and her husbands past and goes to stay with them. However she arrives into another problem and it seems that when bodies start turning up and deathbed confessions are bandied about it brings in Scotland Yard and Inspector Beard, who doesn't not necessarily hold with Laetitia's gut feelings and emotions. 

Only the truth will do and surely a place of worship and contemplation will be the place to find it? Or is it all just a facade?

I was entranced by the plot and worked out part of the problem but was most distracted by the red herrings to do with the Welland brothers such was the strength of the writing. 

A refreshing historical crime novel with a independent female detective and not afraid to delve perhaps into what was seen as the most deviant parts of Victorian society, 

I hope I don't have to wait another three years for another book.

Set in 1851, and bursting with larger-than-life characters, this is a very recommendable good read.

“Dickens-lite” is a compliment, since Dickens was so in tune with what the readers of his day wanted that this is the kind of story he would be writing were he alive now. A convoluted way of saying that the second in the Laetitia Rodd Mystery series is a very readable and enjoyable novel, so much so that I acquired the first in the series, which I missed on publication, and have now read it with equal pleasure.

Laetitia is an endearing, strong and resilient character who uses her network of connections as a clergyman’s daughter and widow of an Archdeacon to help her in her investigations. Here she starts out by attempting to find the missing brother of a wealthy businessman who is looking for a reconciliation before he dies.

A murder takes place which Laetitia investigates, uncovering a multitude of secrets and preventing a miscarriage of justice. The culprit was not too difficult to spot, but the road to the solution had some interesting diversions.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for the digital ARC.