June 1814 The Godwin and Clairmont offspring and friends are out in Hyde Park watching the celebrations when the next day one of the females is found dead, and Charles Clairmont believed to be the last one to see her. They decide to investigate. A lot of description of their daily lives and poverty showing them up as fairly unlikeable and several of them totally useless.
Overall a well-written and enjoyable enough read.
An ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thank You NetGalley for the Arc!

We go through a journey with Mary and Jane (stepsisters) that started with a murder and the disappearance of their brother that’s the primary suspect. At the same time , We also see Mary battling with following her heart, or doing what’s expected of her in order to help her family.
This book is fantastic if you’re a fan of historical fiction and mystery

Enjoyed this book so much. Such a fresh idea and so beautifully written.

Mary Shelly and her complex family are thrown into a murder mystery. This murder involves a young lady that her brother was courting, and he too has gone missing. Mary and her step-sister Jane will search for Charles and attempt to clear his name.

This book is part of a series, but you can read this book as a stand-alone. It is easy to follow, and the whole storyline is just perfect. I enjoyed the characters and their constant home problems plus the murder mystery that they need to solve. I look forward to going back and reading the first 2 books.

Thank you, Netgalley and Kensington Publishing, for this ARC. All opinions are entirely my own.

I read this courtesy Kensington Books and NetGalley. The third in Heather Redmond’s series about Mary “Frankenstein” Shelley, only a couple of years before she has the nightmare that has inspired fiction—and nightmares—for centuries since, in this suspenseful work, Mary’s stepbrother Charles finds himself in an awkward situation since two women he is involved with are found hanged, one after another. He has to hide, and his mother (and Mary’s stepmother), a volatile and violent woman at the best of times (and prone to abusing her stepdaughters), gets worse as she worries about him. Mary, her stepsister Jane, and Percy Bysshe Shelley take it upon themselves to figure out who is behind the murders to clear Charles’s name. In addition, as Mary’s and Jane’s stepmother’s abuse to them gets worse and they become more and more afraid for their lives (if not from the actual killer, their stepmother), they have to figure out how they must save themselves. The mystery in this story is satisfyingly twisty, since there are possible culprits that just seem too obvious and it's also obvious that there is information that hasn’t been revealed yet. Kudos to Redmond for continuing to spin a tale that’s increasing in intensity and raising all sorts of questions. This was a gripping read, and I couldn't put it down. I can’t wait to see what happens next in Mary’s journey as a writer before her fateful nightmare!
#DeathandtheRunaways #NetGalley

I'd not read the earlier book that introduced Mary Shelley (well, at this point she's Mary Godwin) but that didn't matter because this made a fine read as a standalone historical mystery. Redmond does a fine job of incorporating real people into a nicely twisty mystery that leans in on the atmospherics of the period. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A good read.

Heather Redmond's Mary Shelley mystery series is a treat for anyone who knows a bit about Shelley's work and life story. Shelley was young when she wrote Frankenstein—and since this series is set pre-Frankenstein, she's even younger in these mysteries.

The family setting in which the mysteries take place is complex. Her mother was feminist Mary Wollestonecraft, who died giving birth to her. When Mary was four, he father remarried. Her step mother had two children by a former marriage, so Mary found herself with two new siblings. In this mystery series, Mary has a close relationship with her step-sister. However, both step-sister and step-mother are depicted as more conventional than Mary, who has grown up reading her mother's works.

This makes for an interesting set of relationships among the series' central characters. There are both tensions and affections. There is also constant worrying about money, since Mary's father William Godwin tended to live beyond his means.

While this is a series, the individual volumes can be read as stand-alones, though reading them in order allows the reader to see the way the relationships among family members evolve over time.

If you enjoy historical mysteries with a literary aspect, you'll enjoy Death and the Runaways, whether you read it alone or after earlier volumes in the series.

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