FAREWELL BLUES

A dowager marchioness’s daughter does her best to get her mama out of the pokey in 1925 London.

Things look bleak for Constance, Lady Broughton. Not that her affair with Edmund Moreton, fifth Duke of Rufford, was in any way illegal, both participants being well of age and widowed to boot. But the Duke’s death in a suite at the Ritz definitely was a crime since he was shot with a pistol. And since the pistol was Lady Broughton’s and the lady herself was found standing next to the body in a bloodstained peignoir, it’s hard to fault the police for locking her up, title and all. Her daughters, Lady Adelaide Compton and Lady Cecelia Merrill, appeal to the court to grant their mother bail, to no avail. So while Cee weeps and frets, Lady Adelaide does the only thing she can think of to secure her mother’s release: She launches a full-scale investigation to unmask the real culprit. Her probe depends on an odd assortment of characters: Beckett, Addie’s cinema-fanatic maid; Stephen Moreton, the murdered Duke’s grandson, who wishes to marry a Black American cabaret singer; and Graf Franz von Mayr, the estranged Austrian husband of the late Duke’s daughter. But the pick of the litter is DI Devenand Hunter, who takes a leave of absence from his job at Scotland Yard to help Lady Adelaide clear her mother’s name. Dev is a catch not only from the sleuthing perspective; he’s also handsome, witty, and a good dancer. Adelaide’s first priority is her mother’s release, but the plucky sleuth can’t help enjoying the chance to get up close and personal with dashing Dev.

Robinson balances crime and romance, but her sharp heroine is the real prize.