‘ It’ s truth universally acknowledged that a single man.. ‘

Aaaa, wrong book you would think. Mmm, no, not really…I dare you to take my word for it.

This particularly multi-layered story particularly entertained me greatly, and all sorts of things are at play, of course, but secondarily it is also about Mr Darcy, and Heathcliff and Shakespeare, about ( the) (M-/moors), and so much more….this story is really quite ingenious, and when you think you know what is happening, something else pops up.
Here we are dealing with a CWA gold dagger winner, and this book shows yet again how deserved this award is, how this man plays with words, and how insanely well this story is constructed.
Setting is a small and isolated community in Brönte moorland, - a small community surrounded by deadly marshland & misty moors, a sinister tower and a private asylum, where two men disappeared centuries apart from each other, never to be seen again.

By the by, this is the third volume in the Rachel Savernake golden age mysteries. I read the last volume ‘Sepulchre Street’ first, and received a review copy of this prior volume at a later date.
Aaaa, what does a little time travel matter now, the things I couldn't quite place in that volume become clear in this one. Besides, I've been a fan of H.G Wells since I was young. A bit of travelling back and forth often gives one unprecedented insights.

Rachel Savernake mainly entertains herself with chess, (the love for the king’s game she shares with H.G. Wells and me) puzzles, and solving mysteries while enjoying special cocktails. She is assisted in her duties by a club of rather peculiar staff, the lot reminded me of the Addams family to be frank, with Cruella (Rachel) ruling the roost.

‘Nell’ calls on Rachel for help, with a mystery of inexplicable disappearances, and a killer on the loose.
The first few chapters were tough and required some perseverance, though the rather dark humour made up for a lot, it's mostly in the ambiguities, such as Rachel being used as a guinea pig to try out new cocktails. This concept is used in a completely different way later in the book... And the unnamed island where Rachel and her servants first lived also makes you wonder about her background if you know a little more about H.G Wells...

The story takes place in the 1920s - and much of the morality prevailing then comes into play in this story, such as the global movement of eugenics, which a mere decade later would form the basis of an abhorrent ideology, and the revival of spiritualism.
This mystery story also reflects on the ethics of the practitioners of the occult, from advocates we do not readily associate with this phenomenon today; he wanted this to become a new religion, so that all bereaved families could find resignation in the loss of their loved ones, - after all, they could still be summoned.
We may look at it with Argus eyes now, but what harm can it do if it makes people's suffering a little more bearable..

Eventually, Rachel Savernake goes to the village herself, to find out about the men's mysterious disappearances and to call out a last séance to unmask the killer.

Quite a few English literary gods pass by in this book, from Sir Conan Doyle, to Austen, Christie, Dickens and Shakespeare. And remember, remember, the overarching themes such as domestic abuse, feminism, morality, spiritualism, the selfishness of characters, how women influence men in a male dominated society, and that terrible human flaw: always wanting more and more and more ... .are present in abundance.

I enjoyed this story immensely, and marvelled at the brilliant wordplay, how the author plays with making things visible that were seemingly hidden. I enjoyed the gothic setting and Rachel is a fascinating and delightfully flawed character I would love to play a game of chess with, over a delicious cocktail!

An intelligent and entertaining murder mystery for geeks and Christie fans alike. No matter how far we go back: Shakespeare already knew it, Dickens wrote tomes about it, in the end, it always comes back to family, first impressions, status, and that damn money.

5 ***** thank you Netgalley & Poisoned Pen Press for this arc. I leave this review voluntarily and these words are my own.

Publication date: August 1, 2023
Pages: 400

The Puzzle of Blackstone Lodge by Martin Edwards is a locked tower mystery that will keep you guessing until the very end. Rachel Savernake is a young woman who travels to Blackstone Lodge to investigate a series of mysterious disappearances. She is aided by Jacob Flint, a journalist and Rachel's friend.

The Puzzle is a classic locked room mystery with all the elements you would expect from the genre: a mysterious death, a locked room, and a clever detective. Edwards does a masterful job of weaving together the clues and red herrings, and the reader is kept guessing until the very end. Edwards does a good job of making Rachel a complex and interesting character, and the reader can't help but root for her to solve the mystery.

I'll read anything Martin Edwards writes!


I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

A Locked Room Mystery plus an Asylum with mysterious deaths plus a Spiritualist with a mysterious past. There's a lot going on in this historical mystery set in an unfriendly English Village!

Rachel Savernake is the daughter of a judge, ridiculously wealthy, slightly bored, and smart as a whip. In other words, she has all the qualities of a Bright Young Thing ready to solve mysteries. And in Martin Edwards’ series of books, we get to hold on tight and go along for the ride. Both of these titles have meandering plots but they are fun reads.

Rachel Savernake is lured into the Yorkshire moors to solve a 400-year old mystery, one that has just repeated itself. James I has just ascending to the throne, after decades of Elizabeth I’s stable rule. A man walks into the gatehouse at the manor and disappears. It is a story often repeated in whispers in the village.

In 1930, the gatehouse has been let for the first time in history. And then the tenant disappears in the same way. Rachel decides she will rent the gatehouse and conduct her own investigation, with the help of her friend and reporter Jacob Flint. The solution lies somewhere at the crossroads of Jacobean history, a local sanitarium, and a (fraudulent?) medium.

Maybe I didn't like the protagonist because I hadn't read the previous novels that established her. Maybe if I read them, I will become more sympathetic towards her and appreciate her behaviour more favourably. But when I consider The Puzzle Of Blackstone Lodge as a standalone novel, I have to conclude that this is a mystery novel with a fascinating and gripping plot but a terrible protagonist and weak characters. I am not sure if I want to read the previous installments, but I will definitely read a spinoff featuring the adventures of Nell Fagan if it is ever written.

I had some trouble getting in to this book. I love a cozy mystery, and read plenty by British authors, but the language here was too British for me. I did not read the other books in this series, so perhaps that would have made it a more enticing read.

A very good read, I had not read the previous books, will now go back and start from the beginning! Found myself compelled to get to the end a great page turner!

Nell Fagan has been given the boot from her reporters' job and her career in tatters. However, she has discovered a potential new story that will hopefully get her back into the good graces of Fleet Street. A young man believes that his stepfather has forcibly encased his mother into Blackstone Fell Sanatorium, which resulted in her death. No one takes him seriously. Nell goes to Blackstone but finds more mysteries than just one murder. There also appears to be disappearances connected to Blackstone Tower that are 300 years apart.

Nell attempts to recruit Rachel Savernake but Rachel refuses to help someone who lies to her. However, Rachel is intrigued and does eventually go to Blackstone Fell. Unfortunately, it is not in time for poor Nell, and now Rachel must discover what it was that Nell wanted to hide from Rachel.

I haven’t read any of Martin Edwards books, but I definitely will now! His writing feels like a blending of Agatha Christie and Ellery Queen. I actually felt what was missing in this novel was a “Challenge to the Reader” like Ellery Queen does. There is a Clue Finder at the end, which was new to me, but very much like revealing all of the “breadcrumbs”.

There are quite a few characters and plenty of motives. This made the novel fast paced for me. It wasn’t all action, action, action, but more like an exercise for the “little grey cells”. There were also little bits of history comingled throughout the novel that showed how much research the author really put into his work.

Overall, I rate this novel 5 out of 5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this ARC! This book is wonderful at setting the scene, I was able to picture the 1930s perfectly with the description and the dialogue of the characters but i found the story slow moving and was not able to connect with the characters. Unfortunately i was not able to finish the book. I will search out another book from this author, it might have just been this particular mystery.
Thank you.

"Rachel Savernake investigates a bizarre locked-room puzzle in this delicious Gothic mystery from the winner of the CWA Diamond Dagger.

1930. Nell Fagan is a journalist on the trail of an intriguing and bizarre mystery: in 1606, a man vanished from a locked gatehouse in a remote Yorkshire village, and 300 years later, it happened again. Nell confides in the best sleuth she knows, judge's daughter Rachel Savernake. Thank goodness she did, because barely a week later Nell disappears, and Rachel is left to put together the pieces of the puzzle.

Looking for answers, Rachel travels to lonely Blackstone Fell in Yorkshire, with its eerie moor and sinister tower. With help from her friend Jacob Flint - who's determined to expose a fraudulent clairvoyant - Rachel will risk her life to bring an end to the disappearances and bring the truth to light.

A dazzling mystery peopled by clerics and medics; reporters and rogues, Blackstone Fell explores the shadowy borderlands between spiritual and scientific; between sanity and madness; and between virtue and deadly sin."

A locked room mystery with a mystic? Oh my yes.

An ancient mystery. A crumbling tower that three men, centuries apart, have disappeared inside, never to be seen again. Dangerous moorland. A secretive sanatorium. A nosy reporter. A brutal rector. Two grieving widowers. A mysterious medium. A beautiful, uncanny detective. This one has it all. And while you might think these are stock characters and settings of a throwback English mystery, remember: it’s not the material, but how the strands are woven together that differentiates the Bayeux tapestry from the bath towel. Martin Edwards is an expert weaver.
There are murders to please readers of every stripe: historical murders, yesterday’s murders, today’s murders, a swath of murderers, a bouquet of illicit love affairs, all picked apart by Rachel Savernake, a combination Hercule Poirot/Greta Garbo whose unerring instincts and ability to move the cast of characters about like chessmen make even the most outrageous threads of this story seem entirely plausible. This is the third Rachel Savernake mystery, but it’s the first I’ve read; I only hope I have time to catch up on the previous books before the fourth one debuts.
Have I told you the plot? The plot’s in the title: The Puzzle of Blackstone Lodge. If you can figure out that puzzle, you might have a clue to this bewildering, many-layered mystery. But…probably not.

The Puzzle of Blackstone Lodge is the third volume in Martin Edwards' Rachel Savernake "Golden Age" Mysteries series. Technically, it isn't a "Golden Age" mystery, since it's being released for the first time, well after the end of that golden age. Calling it a golden age mystery is, nonetheless, appropriate, as it has all the characteristics of the best golden age mysteries:
• a cast of "types" that are both true to form, but not irritatingly so
• a wealth of clues, some helpful, some misleading
• a mystery that spans centuries
• "goth-ish" elements like caves, seances, precarious cliffs, a sanatorium with suspicious deaths, a rigid and unforgiving vicar, and a small village hostile to outsiders
• an absolutely brilliant denouement scene—followed by yet more surprises
• a "clue finder" at the end—a feature of many Golden Age mysteries that allows readers to identify where clues to specific parts of the mystery were placed within the novel.

What The Puzzle of Blackstone Lodge *doesn't* have is also important:
• no excessively graphic violence
• neither sidelining of women nor belittling of women's intelligence
• no stomach-churning thriller/psychological terror elements

The Puzzle of Blackstone Lodge offers a more-exciting-than-cozy-but-not-blood-soaked mystery structured with such intelligence that even the most seasoned readers of mysteries will find themselves startled at times. It will make for excellent reading, both on the beach and during a dark and stormy night.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own.

Nell Fagan is a brash journalist on the trail of two disappearances - centuries apart.
The men literally disappeared into thin air, never sighted again, but rumours are rife.
The Lodge is nota welcoming space neither are the owners popular amongst the locals.
To add to the mystery, a psychiatric facility run by the Sambrook family is also in
this village, and the family's aloofness addsto the mystery about the patients.

When Nell meets with one attempt to kill her which was unsuccessful, she does not heed
the warning that her prying into events even though 300 years old, obviously is
upsetting a few people. Meeting an untimely end, Rachel Savernake now embarks on her
own lines of enquiry typing up a death in London, with the multiple deaths now happening
in this remote village, and uncovering old family disputes and secrets.

The characters are so varied, the rector and the doctors, the wanna be lord of the
manor all hiding behind a facade of secrets they dont want uncovered. The detective
work progresses slowly but this vintage classic crime and it is very good.

Wow! Do you love a good classic mystery? Do you like a good brain teaser? Well this mystery kept me on the edge and I couldn’t stop myself. I dove head first into the chaos!

Now this, this is a book of my own murder mystery loving heart!

Several puzzles and murders have to be solved in an ominous, Yorkshire village by a middle aged journalist and her friends.

There’s follies, breath taking English scenery, a village pub, a mysterious sanatorium, rumors of adultrey and more.

The first few chapters of this book were slightly hard for me to get through. I’m unsure if it was the writing style or perhaps that this is book 3 in a series (though they can be read as stand alones). However, once I got past them, I finished this romp in 2 days, staying up til 2am for the dramatic reveal!

Will definitely be reading more from this author.

“Justice and the law are different beasts. Laws are two a Penny, justice is rare. Much rarer than people like to believe.”

How do you make a locked room mystery more intriguing? You make it locked gatehouse and have a 300 year gap between the disappearances of the victims. Rachel, who's fascination with odd/complex crimes is becoming well known is approached by a journalist who wishes to team up to solve a 300 year old crime. Rachel declines the offer but when the journalist disappears she decides investigate.
This is the third book in the Rachel Savernake series. I had not read the the previous books but did so after completing this one.
This is a review of an ARC provided by Netgalley.

I only gave this one three starts because I'm not a huge fan of historical fiction but the book is well written and is a locked room puzzle mystery which I love.

A nice and complex locked-room mystery set in a mysterious mansion in the remote corners of Yorkshire Lodge.

Blackstone Fell is the third book in the Rachel Savernake series. I didn't read the previous books and I don't think it's needed to have done so. I was surprised by the plot, its characters and the complexity of the different cases. I definitely felt some Agatha Christie vibes, especially in the end when all the suspects are gathered and Rachel unravels the mysteries. The book contains other elements of classic crime fiction, but I won't give them away.

Rachel annoyed me in the beginning, I must admit, but I warmed up to her throughout the book. She loves mysteries and puzzles, and she's a very rational character. In this story, she's confronted with the occult and strong belief in spiritualism which adds a challenge to the resolution of the cases.

The writing is great and engaging, even though I could have done with less description of the mundane scenes.

Loved the "Cluefinder" at the end of the book, it was a great idea. This where the author identifies the pages on which clues appeared. I had my suspicions throughout the read but I only figured out who the villain was at the very end. Some of the clues I noticed, others completely passed me by.

A great read!

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advanced ARC!

The story starts with a perplexing puzzle- two men with no apparent connection from different eras vanish without a trace after entering the Blackstone Lodge. The plot thickens with Nell Fagan appearing on the scene, using the disappearance of the two men as a cover for her real intentions. Nell is investigating another crime - a murder at the Sanatorium.

Rachel Savernake, a curious soul, becomes intrigued by Nell's true intentions and begins exploring the mystery herself. The plot unravels, and the characters delve deeper into the unknown, slowly unraveling the dark secrets of the lodge and the Sanatorium.

Characters

The protagonist Rachel Savernake is a clever and crafty sleuth who never reveals her hand too soon. Her sharp instincts keep her two steps ahead of everyone else, but she cleverly conceals her true intentions. Rachel is driven by an ardent passion for solving crimes, which is evident throughout the story. It is important to note that Rachel seeks the assistance of her crew, depending on each of them to chase various leads. With such a strong character, readers are compelled to follow and root for her to get to the bottom of the mystery.

Nell Fagan desperately needs Rachel's assistance to provide her with a different perspective. However, she is not entirely forthcoming about the details of the case. Her goal is to solve the crime and redeem herself. Nell is the opposite of Rachel in the sense that she is a lone wolf and fails to seek assistance when called for.

Several suspects are introduced at the story's outset, and their actions raise suspicions. Mrs. Royle, the Reverend's wife, confronts Nell Fagan, implying that she is hiding something. Dr. Denzil Sambrook, the son of Dr. Sambrook, has ambitions to take over Blackstone Fell. Mr. Lejueune, who resides in Blackstone Tower, keeps to himself.

Clues & Distractions
The author crafts a compelling story that keeps the reader guessing until the end.

The author brilliantly infused subtle hints into the dialogues and scenes, providing a treasure hunt for readers to decipher. At the end of the book, a clue finder is kindly provided that, even as the novel is done, gives readers that aha moment.

The Reverend Royce's relationship with his wife, the intriguing seance, and the seemingly unrelated patients of the Sanatorium distract readers from the main mystery.

Rachel and her crew's keen investigation skills put the puzzle pieces together, making sense of everything. Readers will recognize the grand reveal and twist ending tropes in this novel.

Reading Enjoyment

As I explore the third novel of the Rachel Savernake series, I am thoroughly engrossed by the evolving storyline. I particularly admire the intricate plot line, which appears tangled at first glance but untangles beautifully by the end. It's an exhilarating adventure to observe the plot unravel and come to life.


Thank you NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for my E-ARC in exchanged for my honest review.

After the initial pages, I found myself not connecting with the story or characters, so I decided to pass on this book. Did not finish