A Shadowed Livery

This book has everything I love about golden age mysteries, country house setting, cast of varied characters all hiding something, murder and deceit, crime and a satisfying payoff. There are several interwoven subplots and the characters (and their imperfections and foibles) are three dimensional and believable in the context of the book.

I like that the author didn't shy away from the antisemitism of England in 1938. The history and background were well researched and I didn't find any egregious mistakes.

I enjoyed this book very much and I sincerely hope the author continues this series. I look forward to finding out what the wartime years hold for inspector Givens and his sidekick Sawyer.

It's a bit cliché to describe it as 'writerly' but this really is a well written book, nothing clunky or awkward here.

Five stars

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher.

Though I personally am not much of a fan of the murder/mystery/detective genre, I found this book to be tightly woven and in the setting of pre WW2 England and the anti-semitism that was rampant, a fairly captivating read. Though it won't ruin anything by saying that the butler definitely didn't do it, I would not have suspected who did it until the very end. It certainly kept me reading!

1938 and Inspector James Given is instructed to look again at a murder and two suicides at Grovestock House in a nearby village.
An interesting little mystery based on true events.

5 stars

In late September 1938, Peter Bishop was hanged for his crimes with six people in attendance. One was Inspector James Given who arrested him for kicking a shopkeeper to death in the street. Given has been investigating the spate of beatings again Jewish people.

Superintendent Henry Dyer takes Inspector Given off the case and hands him a different sort of puzzle. Grovestock House is the home of a very influential and wealthy family named Barleigh. There has been a murder and two suicides. The police thought it solved until the press was quoted as saying the family got off too lightly because of their standing and wealth. So Dyer sends James out to take another look.

Apparently, Lady Isabelle Barleigh shot her disabled son Tom and then turned the gun on herself. Almost immediately, the son’s fiancée Miss Jenny Bamford committed suicide as well.

Reading the case file, James sees that Constable John Sawyer, a local lad, has acted with speed and clarity in investigating the case, interviewing witnesses and written up his notes with alacrity. But it bothered Inspector James Given that the whole case had been dispatched so readily and speedily.

Inspector Given is surprised to see Elizabeth Parry working at Grovestock House. She was a woman to whom he proposed marriage some time earlier. She had disappeared without a trace and he still is hurt by the whole situation. But she also knows more than she is telling.

The Inspector begins by re-interviewing the workers in and around the house. There seems to be something missing from some of the accounts, but Inspector Given can’t put his finger on it. Constable Sawyer is interviewing the people of the village and learns some interesting tidbits. There seems to be something about the Barleigh family that is not being told.

We learn about Inspector Given’s family and the apparent split. We learn about him changing his name.

The young man who was to be the best man at Tom’s pending wedding and was at the house when Isabelle, Tom and Jenny were killed comes under suspicion once more. It seems he was not totally honest with Inspector Given and he is in a lot of trouble, for more than just being evasive.

After reviewing the photographs that Constable Sawyer took of the murder scene, the Inspector learns that it was not Isabelle killing Tom and then herself. Someone had murdered all three victims.

This book is very well written and plotted. Inspector Given is a great character and I appreciated how well he got along with Constable Sawyer, who was just learning and honing his detective skills. This novel is pure police detection. Since they did not have all the forensic data that we have available today, the Inspector and the Constable solve this crime on their skills alone and the photos taken by an old Brownie camera. (I had one of those when I was much younger!) I am so taken with Mr. Garratt’s writing style and ideas that I can hardly wait until the next book is out.

I want to thank NetGalley and Holland House for forwarding to me a copy of this wonderful book to read and enjoy.

Antisemitism in the 1930's was not confined to Germany. England had its share of fascists (Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists) and other far right prejudices. The increasing number of refugees from Germany only exacerbated the feelings of resentment from certain elements of the population.

The book begins with Inspector James Givens witnessing the execution of a man who murdered a Jewish shopkeeper.

Although Givens had been investigating the increasing number of attacks on Jews, his superior pulls him off that investigation when a murder and two suicides involving a wealthy and influential family takes precedence. The notoriety of the case has the police scrambling, especially as the initial investigation was a bit precipitous.

Inspired by an actual case, A Shadowed Livery by Charlie Garratt appears to be a possible new series featuring Inspector Givens.

NetGalley/Holland House

Historical Mystery. 2015. Print length: 262 pages.

A well-paced mystery set in the Golden Age wherein our detective gets down to brass tacks in a traditional country home; stocked with a secretive butler, barely literate maids, and old flames and rich with the period detail that modern mystery enthusiasts will enjoy.