Murder at Midnight is the fourth Lily Adler historical cozy mystery by Katharine Schellman. Released 19th Sept 2023 by Crooked Lane, it's 320 pages and available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. Paperback format due out in third quarter 2024 from the same publisher. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout.
This is a nice historical mystery set in the Regency era and featuring a well rounded cast of characters, including young widow Lily Adler, up from London in Hertfordshire for the holiday season, and still in semi-mourning for her late husband. The mystery is written around a framework of real history which gives it some verisimilitude. The background research was inserted seamlessly and the whole is quite polished and engaging.
This is a limited suspect pool isolated "country house" setting, and does a more-than-creditable job of following the pattern with fair play clues, multiple twists, and red herrings in the classic style.
The writing is articulate, the narrative arc and
tension are well engineered, and with a satisfying denouement. The
dialogue
isn't ever clunky or cringe-worthy (and for modern Regency fiction,
that's saying something). There are some minor developments between the
main characters which will be spoiled by having been read out of order,
but nothing major. The mystery is nicely crafted and the motives for
the crimes are believable (for fiction).
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
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