A Rare Interest In Corpses

This was an interesting mystery. Elizabeth Martin comes to London to be a companion to her “Aunt Parry” who is widowed from Elizabeth’s godfather. On her way from the train, she sees a body being removed from a demolished area and later learns that it was the previous companion to Mrs. Parry. As it happens the inspector assigned to the case is from the same village that :Lizzie is from and her Doctor father paid for his schooling. She helps him with the investigation by telling him about visitors to the house. Very exciting ending and a cliff hanger for what’s to come for Lizzie and Ross.

1864, Elizabeth Martin has come to London to take the position of companion to a Mrs. Perry, her god-father’s widow.
On her way to the Perry residence, she encounters a wagon carrying the remains of a young woman. Being the daughter of a country doctor, she isn’t affected by the sight, but interested in the how and why of the death. Especially when it is later learned the woman was Mrs. Perry’s previous companion, who had gone missing.

Elizabeth wants to know how and why the woman was murdered, but is a bit restricted by the expected behaviour of women in this particular era. Even still, she takes it upon herself to investigate and finds she has an ally in Inspector Benjamin Ross. It seems they come from the same town and had met as children, but weren’t from the same social levels. There turns out to be other connections.

The story is interesting, but for me it sometimes dragged when reading parts about the expected behaviour of women and the restrictions put on them. I did enjoy the fact that Elizabeth was a strong character and Inspector Ross respected her for that and her intelligence.

The first in a new series set in London in the 1860's. There are two main characters who appear in all of the books,the first is Lizzie Martin,and the other is Ben Ross. Martin is a strong-willed young woman who takes a position of a lady's companion with a family of seeming respectability. The previous companion has,it appears ,eloped and left the family without prior warning. Her body is later discovered within a partly demolished house.
Ben Ross,who is an up and coming Police Inspector at Scotland Yard is called in to investigate and on meeting Lizzie,recognizes her from their childhood. In their different ways,they begin to piece the crime together and eventually solve the mystery. We have here two very strong and likable characters who carry the plot along nicely. The atmosphere of Victorian London is believable and well described too.

Told with great clarity in two narrative voices against the backdrop of the construction of London's St Pancras Station in 1866. An impoverished woman comes to London as a paid lady's companion and finds that the murder of her predecessor is being investigated by the police officer whose education had been paid for by her father. This is the only significantly contrived coincidence in the book as a neatly engineered mystery unfolds at a pace that rewards the attentive reader and ties up almost every loose end along the way. The characters are distinctive and credible in their language and motivations.

Lizzie Martin arrives in London for the first time. As her cabdriver takes her to her new address, they pass a body covered with a shroud. The body turns out to belong to Madeline Hexham, whom Lizzie is replacing as paid companion. Lizzie can't help wondering about Madeline and who could have wanted her dead.

I enjoyed this one. There was some great background about coal mining and life among the working class. Lizzie and the police inspector, Ben Ross, were strong characters.

This book reads like the first in a series, and if so, I wouldn't mind reading another one.

This is the first book in the Lizzie Martin series. Set in mid-Victorian London with its dense fogs, Peelers and constant redevelopment, Lizze Martin gets drawn into a murder mystery on her arrival in the capital. An old acquaintance from Derbyshire, Inspector Benjamin Ross, is leading the investigation into the murder of her predecessor as companion to Mrs Parry. This is an interesting read, and quite evocative of mid-Victorian London although I spotted the murderer quite early on in the book.

good British village mystery- young girl up from the country, etc. Enjoyable