This Side of Murder

1919. Umbersea Island, England.

Verity had declined the invitation to a weekend house party to celebrate an engagement. An enigmatic note suggesting Verity’s husband committed treason changed her decision, becoming determined to set her widow’s grief aside. She’ll be surrounded by her husband’s fellow officers as one is the groom-to-be, and this might be her only chance to learn who would make such an accusation. Not even Sidney knew she worked for the Secret Service during the war, so it adds complexity that the note writer alluded to her secret too.

Having recently watched Agatha Christie’s "And Then There Were None," television mini-series (released in 2015), I matched the author’s atmospheric writing to the images of the show more film’s island setting and the isolation from the mainland during a storm. I was entranced by the mystery and intrigued by the twists of red herrings. Suspense was heightened with more secrets than anticipated. Differences in experiences dependent on an individual’s role at home or abroad, on or off the battlefield, the impact of experiences, and how each person copes with the physical and/or mental aftereffects and memories are well portrayed.

Perhaps I was never meant to warm to the reveal of an unexpected character as I had grown fond of another party guest. I’ll continue to read the series as I’m anxious to know what path Verity chooses for her future. It was easy to picture this intelligent and independent woman working for the Secret Service, but I think she’ll choose more than romance as the intrigue in her life. show less

Someone is killing off the survivors of Thirtieth division!

Set just after the war in England in 1919. Verity Kent's husband Sidney had been killed during action. Now the war is over the rudderless, fragile Verity has been filling her nights with mindless parties and dubious nightclubbing with the upper crust set. Verity had, "gotten rather good at avoiding [memories]. At calculating just how many rags [she] needed to dance, and how much gin [she] needed to drink so [she] could forget, and yet not be too incapacitated to perform [her] job the following morning."
Verity is lured to the engagement party of a fellow officer of Sidney's by a letter not only claiming Sidney had committed treason but that Verity had been an agent with the show more Secret Service, a fact few people, including her husband, knew about. The engagement/house party is on Umbersea Island. A near car crash with Verity driving Sidney's beloved "currant-red with brass fittings" Pierce-Arrow in the opening scenes introduces Max Westfield, the Earl of Ryde and sets the scene for the up coming days. In many ways this is an omen of things to come. As bodies begin to pile up, the guests find themselves trapped on the island. Verity and Max search for answers. Verity finds herself facing news from her past that stops her in her tracks. The path to the truth is torturous and confusing. Who to trust? And when things come home to roost, can Verity recover from what she discovers?
A rather slick whodunnit with a momentous twist in the tail that has no trouble conjuring the post war era and thrillers of that ilk.
I enjoyed this immensely, despite the quandary Verity finds herself in, and the confusion, indeed shock, that I and Verity are faced with. To my mind, how and where Verity will go from here becomes the greater mystery!

A Kensington Books ARC via NetGalley show less

Modeled after Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, Anna Lee Huber's This Side of Murder gives a pitch perfect portrayal of life in England immediately following the First World War. Once I began reading and took note of the similarities between the two books, I thought to myself, "If [a certain something] happens, I'm out of here." It didn't because Huber's book is not a slavish copy of Christie's.

First off, let me just say that I want Verity Kent's Pierce-Arrow. I love those cars! Huber's main character is an interesting one. Like the women of Bletchley Park, Kent had to sign the Official Secrets Act. She cannot speak of what she did during the war. The death of her husband hit her quite hard, and she's felt at loose ends for show more well over a year. She's tried going to lots of parties, drinking to excess, casual flirtations (antidotes that thousands of others tried throughout the Roaring Twenties), but nothing seems to work. Trying to learn the truth about Sidney seems to be the catalyst that's going to pull her back from the brink.

I like the fact that Verity isn't the female version of Dudley Do-Right. She knows more than most women about the horrors of war, and she's suffered loss, too. But she hasn't exactly kept a stiff upper lip and become married to her widow's weeds. She wants to feel better. She wants to get on with her life. She's just not quite certain of how to go about it. This frailty bodes well for the series. Speaking of the series, the pace is slow for This Side of Murder, but that's mostly due to Huber's setting up her cast of characters and future books. The plot of this book has quite a few twists and turns-- as it should when one keeps in mind the book it's modeled after-- so it's best not to speak of it to avoid giving anything away.

All in all, if I can't have Verity's spiffing Pierce-Arrow, I can have the next best thing: the second book in the series, please! show less

Verity Kent, a war widow and secret government agent during the war, is invited to a party off a remote island by friends of her late husband who was killed in action. She declines the invite but later receives a cryptic message and decides to go after all. Once there, people start dying, getting sick, there's a storm and telephone communication is lost and they are stranded on the island. It's implied that Verity's husband, Sidney, was a traitor and was having an affair with a enemy and passing notes discussed as love letters. Who is to be trusted? Climatic ending but have to say I didn't really like Verity Kent.

I love Huber's other series, the Lady Darby mysteries, and I was eager to read this one, set later in time, immediately after WWI. It was slow to hook me, as I remember The Anatomist's Wife was, but it did. And then I got to page 165. Oh hell no.

Because for the first 164 pages, she sucked me in and I became invested in Verity. But not just Verity, but Verity and Max. Max is awesome. Max is the OED poster-man for hero. But nooo... we couldn't just enjoy that slow burn, she had to introduce a love triangle:

By brining Verity's DEAD HUSBAND BACK FROM THE DEAD. Is she kidding me with this? GAH!

So, while the story was amazing - old crimes never punished, ciphers, secrets, revenge, the whole lot wrapped up in an almost Christie-esque show more island setting (with the requisite storm, of course), and a VERY strong and capable heroine, Huber seriously knocked the wind out of my sails with page 165's revelations. My enthusiasm continued to dim as, frankly, my wish for the 'other' man's imminent demise remained unfulfilled. Some might find this story to be a truly HEA affair, but all things considered, that twist knocked a 5 star read down to a 3 star for me. Because of all the different love triangles an author can torture her readers with, this one is just the worst kind of crap.

The cover says "A Verity Kent Mystery", implying a series, but I don't know if I can read another one, no matter how damn good the story is. If another does come out, I'll be reading all the spoilers I can find before deciding. show less

Verity Kent is a young widow. Her husband Sydney was killed in action during World War I. Verity comes from a privileged section of society. She spent her war working secretly for the secret service. Now she has been invited to the engagement party of one of her husband's closest friends at his island castle. She meets Max along the way who is also invited to the party and who was a colleague of her husband's. Both have reasons other than having a good time for attending the party.

Verity has received a letter encouraging her to attend in order to find information about the possibility that her husband was a traitor. Max is also going to find information about an event that happened during the war. When Verity arrives at a tension-filled show more household, she believes that Max is someone she can trust but a letter given to her telling her to trust no one shakes her belief.

When the bodies start piling up and a storm keeps them from reaching the mainland for help, Verity is plunged into a mystery that has its start in the trenches of World War I and concerns treason. The startling reappearance of her husband who is in dogged pursuit of the traitors in order to clear his own name adds to the mystery.

This was a tense and thrilling mystery. I liked Verity and like that she doesn't just accept the reappearance of her husband. She doesn't know if she can trust him. She also sees evidence that he is willing to put his desire for justice ahead of their marriage and her feelings.

The setting was well done and the historical details about fashion and lifestyle added a lot to this first in a new trilogy. show less

First in a series:

Post WWI mystery: Verity Kent (a war widow & former Secret Service agent), has been invited to a house party along w/ the surviving officers of the Thirtieth to celebrate the engagement of another one of the officers on a small island's estate.

At first, Verity declines, but upon receiving an anonymous note alleging treason by her husband, Verity hesitantly accepts.

When two of the officers turn up dead the members of the house party are only told that they've become ill and are confined to their rooms.

As Verity investigates w/ the help of one of the other officers, it becomes clear that her husband was murdered by one of his own men while investigating those perpetrating treason.

I must say, I figured out one of the plot show more twists very early on, but had the actual murderer incorrect.

An interesting first novel.... show less