The Rhyme of the Magpie

Nothing can spoil Jools’s cozy night in. Except maybe a visit from her famous father, Rupert Lanchester. Ornithologist célèbre and the most dashing silver fox on English telly. He turns up on the doorstep of her quaint little Suffolk cottage, desperate to get something off his chest. Jools doesn’t want to hear another word about her glamorous yet snooty new stepmum. She gives him short shrift and sends him on his way.

If you're looking for something new in the English village mystery line, I can recommend Marty Wingate's The Rhyme of the Magpie. This book has good pacing, a great "voice," a setting that invites you to come on in and sit a spell, and an engaging main character...

...although I do have to admit that I wasn't impressed with Julia Lanchester at first. Her extremely childish reaction to her father's remarriage made me want to tell her to stop acting like a brat and start acting like a caring adult. Since I'm letting you know my opinion changed quite a bit, that tells you something. Marty Wingate's main character is definitely not static or two-dimensional.

One of the things I enjoyed most was watching Julia's creative mind work on show more developing ideas to boost tourism in her village. It not only gave me perspective on what these places have to do in order to survive, Julia's plans made me want to participate and made me admire the way her mind works.

The mystery in The Rhyme of the Magpie is a good one. Although I did deduce someone's identity quickly, I couldn't do the same for the killer. With all of Julia's plans to boost tourism in Smeaton-under-Lyme, I'm looking forward to a brand-new crop of suspects. One observation though-- Julia had better keep her assistant very happy indeed. She would be completely lost without Vesta taking all her shifts so she can play detective!

Bring on the next one, please! show less

Resentful of her father’s hasty remarriage, impulsive Julia Lanchester flees her home and her job working for her father’s BBC Two nature show, A Bird in the Hand, to the English countryside; there, she takes a tourism post in Smeaton-under-Lyme, Suffolk. But her father, renowned bird expert Rupert Lanchester, doesn’t want to take no for an answer from his distraught daughter; he tracks her down to her cottage. After a failed attempted reconciliation, Rupert leaves Suffolk, but the ornithologist disappears the next morning.

Assisted by her replacement —Rupert’s straitlaced new assistant, Michael Sedgwick — Julia tries to track down her old man. What the pair finds instead a murdered corpse.

You don’t need to be a bird show more watcher or a cozy lover to enjoy The Rhyme of the Magpie, which could have been another twee meet-cute romance-cum-mystery, but instead oozes oodles of charm and a mystery with enough twists to keep you guessing. I never guessed who the murderer was, although readers will work out a subplot before Julia does. Still, that won’t detract from enjoying this first novel of a planned series by Marty Wingate; I can hardly wait for the sequel and the further adventures of the intrepid and clever Julia Lanchester.

In the interest of full disclosure, I received this book from NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group — Alibi in exchange for an honest review. show less

Resentful of her father’s hasty remarriage, impulsive Julia Lanchester flees her home and her job working for her father’s BBC Two nature show, A Bird in the Hand, to the English countryside; there, she takes a tourism post in Smeaton-under-Lyme, Suffolk. But her father, renowned bird expert Rupert Lanchester, doesn’t want to take no for an answer from his distraught daughter; he tracks her down to her cottage. After a failed attempted reconciliation, Rupert leaves Suffolk, but the ornithologist disappears the next morning.

Assisted by her replacement —Rupert’s straitlaced new assistant, Michael Sedgwick — Julia tries to track down her old man. What the pair finds instead a murdered corpse.

You don’t need to be a bird show more watcher or a cozy lover to enjoy The Rhyme of the Magpie, which could have been another twee meet-cute romance-cum-mystery, but instead oozes oodles of charm and a mystery with enough twists to keep you guessing. I never guessed who the murderer was, although readers will work out a subplot before Julia does. Still, that won’t detract from enjoying this first novel of a planned series by Marty Wingate; I can hardly wait for the sequel and the further adventures of the intrepid and clever Julia Lanchester.

In the interest of full disclosure, I received this book from NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group — Alibi in exchange for an honest review. show less

Julia Lancaster is the daughter of a famous BBC personality, Rupert Lancaster, an orinthologist whose show A Bird in the Hand is extremely popular. She worked as her father's assistant for years, until he remarried Beryl, her mother's best friend, only six months after her mother's death, crushing her. She felt he never grieved for her mother, and wondered if he was having an affair even before her mother died. Closing off all communication with him, she accepts a position as a tour manager for the estate of an earl.

When her father enters her place of business one day, hoping to talk over a problem, she's very short with him and he leaves dejectedly. Later, when Beryl calls her claiming Rupert is missing, Julia reluctantly goes to see show more her, and meets her father's new assistant, Michael Sedgewick. Calming Beryl with the fact that Rupert has been known to take 'unplanned vacations' before, she and Michael go to the cottage at Marshy End, where Rupert should be. Instead, they find a dead body - and Rupert is nowhere to be found.

Not wanting to believe her father is involved in the murder, she knows she must find him before the police do, and unwillingly enlists Michael's help, because someone has stolen her car, and she needs him for transportation if nothing else.

So we have the beginning of a mystery that involves murder, birds (yes, birds) and misunderstandings between several people. We see Julia trying to find her father while sorting out her feelings for her stepmother, and not at all wanting to face the fact that she needs to deal with things head on. Julia, you see, is a great believer in the fact that If You Ignore It Then It Will Go Away. Confrontation is not her strong point; and that's putting it mildly. Because of this, she has encountered troubles in her life that could have been avoided; and now it looks as if she'll need to face them all at one time, which leads to some hasty decisions on her part, and not all good.

Just when she thinks she has one problem solved, another pops up in its place. And we are taken along on her journey to find peace with her stepmother, reinforcement of her relationship with her father, and the ability to be able to carry a new relationship without sabotaging it in some way or another; all the while she is trying to find out who murdered the dead man, and why.

Along the way, we learn quite a bit about how buildings can destroy the future environment for their habitats. We also learn about birding itself, which made me want to look up their biological and controls and bio-indicators as well. Fascinating, to say the least. Not only beautiful to look at, as the saying goes...

When the answer comes, it is so simple that it makes sense. And the ending is tied up nicely, giving us a feeling of satisfaction, much as Julia must feel for herself. This is a book that is not only truly enjoyable to read, but satisfying in its resolution of a crime without seeming cloying or unbelievable. Kudos to Ms. Wingate for another delightful book. I look forward to the next in the series. Highly recommended. show less

Rupert Lanchester is an Ornithologist and has a hit show called A Bird in the Hand. It’s doing very well. Julia Lanchester was happy as her father’s assistant. That was before he remarried only six months after her mother’s death. She needed to place some physical and emotional distance between them so she moves from their house in Cambridge to Smeaton-Under-Lyme, a small village in the English countryside, and finds a new job as a tour guide manager. Rupert tries to contact her, but she is short with him. Then, she receives a rather distressing call from Beryl, her stepmother. She cannot locate Rupert and with some of the hate mail he’s been receiving, she fears the worst.

Julia teams up with Rupert’s new assistant, Michael show more Sedgwick, to try to trace her father’s steps to their cottage at Marshy End. They find a dead man on the riverbank. He is identified as Kenneth Kersey, Communications Director for Power to the People. He and Rupert often had ecological disputes over the development of wind turbines which Rupert felt would wreak havoc on the bird population. She could tell her dad had been at the cottage. Was he responsible for Kersey’s death? She didn’t even want to think such a thing. But the press was calling people’s attention to the disputes between Kersey and Lanchester.

The beginning is rather a slow start but before half way, the reader is fully engaged in Julia’s investigation. It’s told in first person through Julia. There’s a subtle interest that Julia and Michael develop for each other and it’s fair to say it advances nicely into romance. This is a British cozy and is the first in the Birds of a Feather Mystery series. It’s a good well-plotted start. The characters were both likable and enjoyable, although Julia acted a bit immaturely at times. The scenes were wonderfully and beautifully described. Rating: 3.5 out of 5. show less

This is the first book in Marty Wingate's series, Birds of a Feather Mysteries. Julia Lanchester is set adrift after the unexpected death of her mother and the remarriage of her father to her mother's best friend only 6 month's later. She quits her job as her father's assistant and runs away from home. She left in a huff and has not spoken to him in a few months. Her father, Rupert Lanchester, is the host of the BBC show, A Bird in the Hand, designed to bring nature, specifically birds into the lives of everyone. He is also an ardent environmentalist. Julia has moved to Smeaton-under-Lyme where she has been hired to run the Tourist Information Centre. It is a quaint little town, owned by the Lord. When Rupert shows up and tries to mend show more fences with Julia, she dismisses him outright. When she gets a call from her step-mother that he is missing and he left his phone behind, she immediately forgets her grudge and sets out to find him. With the help of his new assistant, Michael, they head off to Marshy End to see if he is hiding out at the family's cottage. What they find is a dead body of a PR man. The company he is representing is trying to put up a wind farm that Rupert has been publicly fighting against and recently had an argument with the deceased. Rupert, it seems, is nowhere to be found. The police are now looking for him as well to question him. Did Rupert kill the man? Where is he hiding? Can Julia find him before the police do?

I found the beginning of the book a little slow moving. I know that there needs to be background given in a new series, but it took a long time to get into the story. I stuck with it and it did finally get better with several twists and turns. There were a lot of people with motive for the murder, so Julia got into a lot of situations trying to figure this one out. There were also a couple of side stories that gave some background to the characters, but seemed to be filler to the story. I have read the second one in this series and I liked it a lot more, so I know the writing gets better. show less