Tag Archives: Kate Shackleton

Great Opening Paragraph 70… ‘Dying in the Wool’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“My name is Kate Shackleton. I’m thirty-one years old, and hanging onto freedom by the skin of my teeth. Because I’m a widow my mother wants me back by her side. But I’ve tasted independence. I’m not about to drown in polite society all over again.”
frances brodyFrom ‘Dying in the Wool’ by Frances Brody

Here’s my review of DYING IN THE WOOL, the first in Frances Brody’s series about amateur sleuth Kate Shackleton set in 1920s Yorkshire:-

And read my reviews of these other Kate Shackleton books:-
A DEATH IN THE DALES #7KATESHACKLETON
A SNAPSHOT OF MURDER #10KATESHACKLETON
DEATH AND THE BREWERY QUEEN #12KATESHACKLETON
A MANSION FOR MURDER #13KATESHACKLETON

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘The Pelican Brief’ by John Grisham 
‘Divisadero’ by Michael Ondaatje 
‘The Secret History’ by Donna Tartt 

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara DYING IN THE WOOL by @FrancesBrody https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-7S8 via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Dying in the Wool’ by @FrancesBrody #cosycrime

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I’ve gone back to the beginning to read Dying in the Wool, first in the 1920s Kate Shackleton crime series by Frances Brody. What a joy it is to meet Kate for the first time, as the author intended. I read this novel quickly over a weekend, jealous of distractions that drew me away from my library book. frances brodyUnlike most first books in what become long-running series, Dying in the Wool starts quickly and gets to the point. A man disappeared seven years ago and his soon-to-be-wed daughter, convinced he ran away to start a new life, asks former VAD colleague Kate to discover his whereabouts so he can walk her down the aisle at her wedding. Widow Kate, her husband Gerald died in the Great War, has become accomplished at solving the mysteries of missing soldiers. But Joshua Braithwaite is the wealthy owner and master of a Yorkshire mill, not a man lost in the horror of battle. Staying with the Braithwaite family, and meeting Joshua’s colleagues and workforce at the mill, present Kate with new challenges and new investigative territory. This is not simply a matter of telling a wife or daughter that a man was killed in action, this is possibly about family secrets, fraud and murder. Kate soon finds herself the subject of gossip in Bridgestead village, and begins to start at moving shadows.
Brody cleverly tells us Kate’s background with Gerald in parallel to her investigations in the Braithwaite case, avoiding the ‘exposition dumps’ that can happen in the first of a series. Already familiar with some of the later books, I was pleased to meet for the first time Kate’s housekeeper Mrs Sugden and private detective Mr Sykes. Seeing Mrs Sugden fussing over Kate’s meals, and Kate encouraging Mr Sykes to get behind the wheel of her motor car for the first time, made me smile. The final quarter of the book moves quickly and, with only a few pages, left there are further twists and turns to challenge Kate’s working theory.
A well-researched and written novel that made me want to start the second book in the series straight away. The textile industry is a fertile setting for a murder mystery and Brody cleverly uses the mill and its workforce, management and working class, the weaving techniques and business finances to good effect. Kate, a wealthy young woman with her own motor car, is noticed by everyone in the mill village where workers and their bosses know everyone and there are few secrets. Or are there?
Enjoyable.

Try the #FirstPara of DYING IN THE WOOL.

Read my reviews of these other Kate Shackleton novels:-
A DEATH IN THE DALES #7KATESHACKLETON
A SNAPSHOT OF MURDER #10KATESHACKLETON
DEATH AND THE BREWERY QUEEN #12KATESHACKLETON
A MANSION FOR MURDER #13KATESHACKLETON

If you like this, try:-
‘An Unsuitable Job for a Woman’ by PD James
‘Fortune Favours the Dead’ by Stephen Spotswood
‘The Blind Man of Seville’ by Robert Wilson

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview DYING IN THE WOOL by @FrancesBrody https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-7y6 via @SandraDanby

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

#BookReview ‘A Mansion for Murder’ by @FrancesBrody #cosycrime

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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? Frances BrodyMilner 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.

Read my reviews of these other Kate Shackleton novels:-
DYING IN THE WOOL #1KATESHACKLETON
A DEATH IN THE DALES #7KATESHACKLETON
A SNAPSHOT OF MURDER #10KATESHACKLETON
DEATH AND THE BREWERY QUEEN #12KATESHACKLETON

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:-
Joanna Trollope

#BookReview ‘A Snapshot of Murder’ by @FrancesBrody #cosycrime

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In 1928, a Photography Society outing to Haworth to see the opening of the new Bronte Parsonage Museum has an unexpected outcome. One of the group does not go home alive. A Snapshot of Murder by Frances Brody is tenth in the Kate Shackleton 1920s detective series, a satisfying story about jealousy, long lost love and betrayal. Frances BrodyKate’s friend Carine Murchison runs a photographic studio with her boorish husband Tobias. Derek, friend of Kate’s niece Harriet, has a theory that Tobias wants his wife dead so he can inherit the studio. But the story is so much more complicated. Throw in a long lost lover returned, the wonderfully scratchy mother and daughter landladies of Ponden Hall near Haworth where the Photography Society stays, the flamboyant Rita who dresses in Indian silks and works in a pharmacy, and a London policeman and former love of Kate who arrives to investigate the murder, and there are plenty of options for arguments, jealousy, upsets and both rejected and reciprocated love. The echoes of the Brontes are welcome too, but Brody never allows this to dominate her story.
This is a character-led crime drama. Kate’s world is created with skill by Brody, I particularly enjoyed Mrs Sugden, Mr Sykes and the addition of Sergeant Dog who plays a key role. Kate investigates with a combination of skill learned from watching her policeman father and a sense of human nature of which Miss Marple would be proud.
The shadow of the Great War hangs over the story with everyone touched in some way by the conflict. Brody twists and turns our emotions, and her reveal of the facts, so our sympathy and dislike of characters is always in flow and the true stories of victim and perpetrator are never simple.

Read my reviews of these other Kate Shackleton novels:-
DYING IN THE WOOL #1KATESHACKLETON
A DEATH IN THE DALES #7KATESHACKLETON
DEATH AND THE BREWERY QUEEN #12KATESHACKLETON
A MANSION FOR MURDER #13KATESHACKLETON

If you like this, try:-
‘Hiding the Past’ by Nathan Dylan Goodwin
‘After the Party’ by Cressida Connolly
‘Blood-Tied’ by Wendy Percival

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview A SNAPSHOT OF MURDER by @FrancesBrody https://wp.me/p5gEM4-4u9 via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘A Death in the Dales’ by @FrancesBrody #cosycrime

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This was a book picked at random purely because of the beautiful cover design and the title. Frances Brody is a new author for me, I had never heard of her Kate Shackleton series. Inadvertently, I chose her latest, A Death in the Dales, the seventh Shackleton book. Now I plan to go back to the beginning. I didn’t struggle for lack of backstory, so I don’t think this is a series which must be read in order. Frances BrodyIt is 1926, Leeds, and Kate Shackleton’s niece is recovering from diptheria. Aunt and niece arrive in the Yorkshire Dales village of Langcliffe in the middle of the May Day celebrations, both in need of a holiday. There they are greeted by two men – the local doctor who has offered the loan of his recently deceased Aunt Freda’s house to Kate, and an elderly local man who presses into Kate’s hands a mysterious box. And so starts the unravelling of a murder, 10 years previously, of which Freda was a witness. Freda believed the wrong man was convicted and sentenced to death.
There is a lot going on in this story: the wrongly convicted murderer, the disappearance of a young farm boy, the courting of Kate by Freda’s nephew, the doctor, Lucian, another suspicious death, love entanglements and local secrets. Brody efficiently weaves together the various threads, setting murder against the beautiful but harsh backdrop of the Yorkshire Dales. There are lovely snippets of 1920s life, the cars, the fashion, the food, the Yorkshire dialect, and the aftermath of the Great War.
More than just a detective story, a period drama with strong female characters, a thoughtful reflection of the impact of the war on the lives of everyone, in city and country.

Read my reviews of these other Kate Shackleton novels:-
DYING IN THE WOOL #1KATESHACKLETON
A SNAPSHOT OF MURDER #10KATESHACKLETON
DEATH AND THE BREWERY QUEEN #12KATESHACKLETON
A MANSION FOR MURDER #13KATESHACKLETON

If you like this, try:-
‘Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death’ by MC Beaton
‘Cover Her Face’ by PD James
‘An Uncertain Place’ by Fred Vargas

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview A DEATH IN THE DALES by @FrancesBrody http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1TM via @SandraDanby