A Mansion for Murder, thirteenth in the Kate Shackleton 1930s crime series by Frances Brody, centres on an unlucky Yorkshire mansion. Intrigued when she receives a letter from a stranger, Kate visits the Milner Field estate, near the mill town of Saltaire, to meet the letter writer. But Ronnie Cresswell, who promised to tell a ‘story from the past,’ has drowned. Can Kate discover this story for herself? Milner Field has an unhappy reputation for bad luck, failure and death. Everyone around the mansion, and nearby Salt Mills, is hiding something. At the mill, a new contract may be lost because an employee is selling sensitive commercial information. And now Ronnie is dead. Some secrets relate to the present day, others are anchored in the past. So many secrets mean lots of red herrings hiding the truth. Ronnie’s death happens at the beginning of the story and a lot of characters are introduced together. Some are just names and I struggled to separate them in my mind, appearing briefly and not seen again.
Brody tells this story in two timelines, Kate in 1930 and a child in the past; the year isn’t specified, the chapters are simply headed ‘Long Ago’. Ronnie Cresswell works for the maintenance department at Salt Mills. His family are deeply connected with the local area. He lives with his parents at The Lodge on the Milner Field estate, which is now for sale. Ronnie’s parents, father [confusingly also called Ronald] is head gardener. His mother is housekeeper and there are three siblings, Stephen, Mark and Nancy. Ronnie, it emerges, is courting Pamela Whittaker, daughter of the Salt Mills owner. Not everyone is happy with their relationship.
The events of the past and present are thinly connected but they contribute to the eerie atmosphere of the once grand house and explain how local legends and rumour take root. I was left feeling that the creepiness of the house and its grounds was under-exploited. A number of sub-plots jog along, some of which amount to nothing much. But the story of Rosie and Jim Sykes is a good one. The most affecting storyline belongs to Miss Mason, the schoolteacher.
Not as tightly written as Brody’s previous Kate Shackleton novels perhaps, as seems to be the case with a number of recently-released novels, it was written during lockdown. Overall this is a good inter-war series with a thoroughbred lead character in Kate Shackleton. Set in a period of social change, Kate’s character and job reflect the alteration in women’s lives, the widening of their opportunities and ambitions, and the old-fashioned obstacles they must still bear.
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Read my reviews of these other Kate Shackleton novels:-
A DEATH IN THE DALES #KATE SHACKLETON7
A SNAPSHOT OF MURDER #KATE SHACKLETON10
DEATH AND THE BREWERY QUEEN #KATE SHACKLETON12

If you like this, try:-
‘I Refuse’ by Per Petterson
‘An Uncertain Place’ by Fred Vargas
‘Or the Bull Kills You’ by Jason Webster

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview A MANSION FOR MURDER by @FrancesBrody https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-67i via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:-