Murder at the Grand Hotel

Lady Caroline Murder Mysteries, Book 1

By: Isabella Bassett

Narrated by: Sandra Churchill

The French Riviera, 1925

Disgraced society “it” girl, Lady Caroline, has been shipped off to the French Riviera to spend remedial time with gout-impaired Uncle Albert. Her crime? An ill-advised scavenger hunt through London, with social-status-ruinous consequences.

Now, instead of pinching police helmets, this Bright Young Thing is pursuing her uncle’s latest hobby along the rocky cliffs of the Cote d’Azur.

But all is not misery in Lady Caroline’s life. Murder brightens up what could otherwise be a terribly dull existence. First, a well-connected seductress is poisoned at the roulette table, then the Riviera’s preeminent villa architect slips off the bluffs into the turquoise Mediterranean Sea idling below.

As the bodies mount, the local police suspect someone is boosting their way up the social ladder through nefarious means.

Lady Caroline has a different idea. Always up for a good scavenger hunt, she can’t resist following the trail of clues to the killer.

Murder at the Grand Hotel is Book 1 of the Lady Caroline Murder Mysteries series. In the glamorous world of 1920s Europe, money and privilege rub shoulders, and greed, envy, and murder are never far behind. Follow Lady Caroline, intelligent and witty, with a fondness for breaking rules, on a fun romp through the golden age of murder mysteries. Each book contains the requisite eccentric characters, fun historical tidbits, and puzzling murders with no gore or gloom.

©2022 Isabella Bassett (P)2023 Isabella Bassett

You'll need to speed up a bit the read to enjoy it

What a wonderful start to a new (to me) series and a worthy addition to the genre.

To avoid an unwanted marrige with a boring candidate, Lady Caroline joins Uncle Albert chase for an elusive orchid on the French Riviera. She fears her stay's going to be a bore, but thanks to her school pal Poppy she manages to have some fun. Until an unusual theft occurs (come on, who cracks a hotel safe to steal a letter and leaves all the jewels?), and then a line dancer dies, then an architect...

The character in this book are well depicted. Lady Caroline is a very modern 1920's woman, self assured, unwilling to accept societal diktats. Uncle Albert is the archetypal absent-minded scholar (I kept seeing Einstein face every time he came up on page), Poppy serves as Caroline counterbalance, as the rich woman focused on finding a good husband for herself. James is a bit of a let down, I hope he redeems himself in the next installments.

The story is brought to an end in a very satisfactory way.

I highly recommend this series to all lovers of historical cozy mysteries set in the 1920.

A unique type of Secretary

Lovely cozy that defers from the norm. Narrator is enjoyable, but one character is an English man named Cecil. She pronounces it the American way. Also mispronounced a couple of other words, so removed a star.