Our Lady of Pain

Lady Rose Summer is an Edwardian debutante who keeps getting herself caught up in murder. Private detective Captain Harry Cathcart has agreed to be engaged so to spare her being shipped to India to find a suitable husband. Harry's latest client is the seductive Dolores Duval who he squires around town, much to Rose's disgust and she loses her temper and threatens her, only to be caught the next day standing over her dead body with the gun in her hand. The race is on to prove her innocence or guilt and on the way she spends some time in an Anglican convent, a sojourn in Paris and in a bolt-hole in Scotland.
It's just so much going on in the story and the characters seem to be blindly stumbling into chaos.

Edwardian End
Review of the Blackstone Audio Inc. audiobook edition (December 2008) of the original Minotaur hardcover (April 2006)

O splendid and sterile Dolores,
Our Lady of Pain.
- excerpt from the poem Dolores (Notre-Dame des Sept Douleurs) by Algernon Charles Swinburne, used as the epigram for Chapter 1 of Our Lady of Pain

Our Lady of Pain concludes the story of Lady Rose Summer and Captain Harry Cathcart in the 4th of 4 Edwardian Murder Mysteries. The mystery elements were mostly secondary in these plots and are more like MacGuffins. The main story arc was always the 'will they or won't they' courtship of the 2 principles. This concluding episode ties things up in the inevitable fashion but does so almost at the last instant, so show more there is the mild suspense of thinking it will still fall apart.

I've completed my pandemic reading splurge of cozy mysteries by M.C. Beaton, the penname used by Marion Chesney (1936-2019) for her popular Hamish Macbeth and Agatha Raisin series. Chesney first became a writer with various historical romances from 1977 onwards, before branching out into the crime genre with her first Hamish Macbeth in 1985 and first Agatha Raisin in 1992. Romances are not my genre, but Chesney's mini-series of 4 Edwardian Murder Mysteries sounded like enough of a crossover between her historical fiction and her cozy mysteries to follow up on.

The narration by veteran Davina Porter (approx. 230 book narrations to her credit) was excellent throughout. Porter is especially good with her range of voices that is able to effectively mimic male as well as female tones.

All of the Edwardian Murder Mysteries series are available free to Audible Plus members. show less

In spite of Davina Porter’s excellent narration, this story is the weakest in the series for me; it’s still a good listen or read, and worth a healthy three stars, but this series would’ve been better with just three titles. In book #4, both the comically dismissive attitudes of Rose’s parents toward her well-being and Rose’s on-again-off-again romance with Harry Cathcart are tiresome.

No spoilers here, except that loose ends are tied up. I won’t say how they’re tied up, and as Marion Chesney/M.C. Beaton fans know, no romance is guaranteed to have a fairy-tale ending in her worlds, but it’s very obvious that this was intended to be the last in the series. Readers of the first three books will want to read "Our Lady of show more Pain" for closure. show less

Book 4 - Rose went to far and now along with Daisy have been sent to learn how to be a respectable women with the nuns - how she gets out of this and finding a new potential husband is her mission - Forget about Harry who hasn't come to save her... or has he --- Great series! the last of the adventure leaves me hoping for a sequel

The final instalment of Harry and Rose's story. And I found it a bit over complicated. Easy to read, read it in a couple of sessions. A few moments of mild humour. Lots of characters flitted in and out. I haven't read book 1, but books 2 to 4, read like one whole book rather than separate stories. Insubstantial is what comes to mind, but everyone pretty much gets a happy ending one way or another. She matured as a character, better than he did.

Silly little Victorian mystery with a miscommunication romance between Lady Rose and Captain Harry with a subplot of her companion Daisy and Harry's assistant. Captain Harry flaunts society by opening a detective agency and getting involved in the murder of a woman of questionable background.

Rose finally gets herself in real trouble when she lets jealousy get the better of her and threatens someone who later turns up dead. Harry & Rose continue to misunderstand each other and the subplot with Daisy and Becket gets a little tiring, but all ends well.