• Author: T.E Kinsey
• Series: Lady Hardcastle Mystery #6
• Genre: Historical Fiction/Murder Mystery
• No. of pages: 378
• Year published: 2019
• Publisher: Amazon Publishing, UK
• Dates read: 12.11.19 – 18.11.19
• Rating: 3 stars

First of all, thank you to Netgalley and Amazon Publishing, UK for this ARC.

Plot: July 1910. Lady Hardcastle and her tireless sidekick Flo have finally embarked on a long-overdue seaside break. But just as they’re wavering between ice creams and donkey rides, their fellow guests start to go missing—and the duo find themselves with a hysterical hotel manager and a case to solve. The first to disappear is Dr Goddard, a scientist doing something terribly top-secret for the government. Gone too are his strongbox and its mysterious contents. By the time Lady Hardcastle has questioned the horde of international guests, her number-one suspect has been dispatched in grisly circumstances—and then the others start vanishing too. As the case begins to look like a matter of national security, Lady Hardcastle takes advice from her brother in the secret service. But could there be an even more personal connection at play?

I loved the dynamic between Armstrong and Hardcastle. I really loved exploring their friendship and learning more about what made them into the friends they are today. I loved how Lady Hardcastle made sure that Armstrong’s opinion was bought into the equation and how she never did anything without consulting her first. It was a really enjoyable friendship to read.

I also loved seeing 2 women working together and lifting each other up. Watching them work and witnessing their knowledge and skill was really fun. I loved the fact that Armstrong was an incredible fighter. It was good to see women show off their skill and knowledge!

The dialogue was incredibly funny and witty. It was exactly my sense of humour and I really enjoy reading comedic banter between close friends and we got a lot of that

The mystery kicked in quite quickly which was good. There was no real waiting around for the main mystery to start. That being said the story did feel slow to get to the first couple of clues and I found myself reading wondering what the importance of certain scenes were as I felt it didn’t give much to the story.

This slow pacing started to worry me as I wasn’t as engaged as I had hoped to be but thankfully the ending came along and gave me more action and some interesting plot points to read and I was happy. I think the ending saved it from losing a star rating. Recently, I found that the ending hinders the books I am reading. Thankfully, this was not the case.

The next book I will be reviewing is House of Night and Chain by David Annandale. Another Warhammer 40k story and I am quite intrigued to see if I liked it as much as I liked Requiem Infernal.