Margot Arnold (1925–2016)

This was the first book I had read by Margot Arnold, and it was an underwhelming experience. The secondary characters were confusing; I had trouble keeping them straight. This was probably because none of them had much personality. Too many one-dimensional men, too many wishy-washy women. The dialogue was often stilted. There were some silly subplots, such as one of the non-entities' husbands running off with a farmer's daughter and his prize bull. This was near the end of the book, and neither the aggrieved farmer, the trampy daughter or the bull had even been mentioned before. However, since I could barely remember who the runaway husband was or what his story was, I didn't care. Just blah. This one is being registered & released on BookCrossing in the hope that it finds a reader who likes it better than I did.… (mere)

From the cover copy, this is the seventh or eighth book in a well-loved series. I will not be searching out more of them.

I was simply not able to believe that these two sleiths were experienced, because they were both TSTL (too stupid to live). They randomly did stupid things, and were shocked, SHOCKED, to find out that this created trouble. They overlooked obvious things, like leaving the plot ticket in an unguarded house after publicly putting it there was a bad idea. One of them recklessly ran around trying to attract the attention and animosity of the villain (to flush him out - really, it was deliberate) and then was shocked that there was a response.

In addition, I didn't think it was well-written. There is a whole sub-plot that seems to exist only to get the detectives to work separately, which has nothing to do with the main mystery, and which is resolved by casually saying that an offscreen character (possibly someone from a previous volume in the series?) can take care of it. On top of this, I didn't like the characters, particularly, and if you take away the "X said" "Y said" tags, there was no way to tell who was speaking. (This means that all the dialogue sounded the same, there were no distinct, individual voices.)

In short, a mess.… (mere)

I would like to give this book four stars. It's certainly very engaging. The biographical sketches are informative and detailed without being too long. The author makes each of these women come alive for the reader, and finds interesting facts to share about each one.

However, I was quite disturbed by the number of inaccuracies in the section on the Tudors. No serious historian believes that Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn's mother were lovers, or that Catherine of Aragon was poisoned, and other things mentioned as facts in the book, such as Henry VIII having syphillis, are only theories with little evidence to support them. The Tudors are the only English dynasty I know a lot about, and seeing so many mistakes in that section makes me wonder how accurate the other sections are.

It's a good read, but don't consider it serious history. Double-check everything this book says before you believe it.… (mere)