MURDER IN MATRIMONY

Which is harder for an agony aunt: planning a wedding or solving a murder?

Though she’s helping to raise her late husband’s niece, Lady Winifred, and placating his difficult aunt, Lady Tabitha, Lady Amelia Amesbury still has time to solve crimes and write a newspaper column under the nom de plume Lady Agony. When Amelia’s troublesome sister, Madge, announces her engagement to Capt. Fitz, it falls to Amelia to plan a wedding that will take place in less than a month. Her first visit to the Rev. Mr. Cross, a champion of the poor, quickly involves her and Lord Simon Bainbridge, her romantic interest and partner in crime-solving, in a complicated series of mishaps. On top of all this, she receives threatening letters from a reader demanding that she reveal the identity of the so-called Mayfair Marauder, who stole and then returned jewels for a reason Amelia’s determined to keep hidden. When Cross is murdered, the police write it off as the work of a thief after the collection box, but before his death, Cross had left Amelia a mysterious clipping about a girl who fell to her death in a biscuit factory. Cross’ church is in a wealthy area, but he also tried to do good in the East End, where his efforts weren’t always appreciated. The wedding plans continue apace as the family arrives, but they’re seriously upended by Madge’s sudden indecision about whether she wants to marry after all. Investigating the deaths of Cross and the girl who died in the biscuit factory draws the sleuths into dangerous territory.

Plenty of period details enrich a story of love, hate, and ambition.