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Bill is one of the founders of Boffins and has been involved in selecting the books we stock since our beginning in 1989. His favourite reading is history, with psychology, current affairs, and business books coming close behind. His hobbies are reading, food, reading, drinking, reading, and sleeping.
Most people will have heard of the Mitford sisters, members of an English gentry family of the twentieth century.They became celebrated, and at times scandalous, figures that were caricatured, according to The Times journalist Ben Macintyre, as "Diana the Fascist, Jessica the Communist, Unity the Hitler-lover; Nancy the Novelist; Deborah the Duchess and Pamela the unobtrusive poultry connoisseur". Jessica Fellowes wrote the five official companion books to Downton Abbey, so she’s no stranger to historical fiction, particularly of the upstairs downstairs variety. Now she’s written the first in a crime series set in 1919 and starring Louisa Cannon, who escapes poverty in London to become a nursemaid and companion to the Mitford sisters at Asthall Manor in rural England. 16 year old Nancy is her favourite. But then a nurse - Florence Nightingale Shore, goddaughter of her famous namesake - is killed on a train in broad daylight, and Louisa and Nancy find themselves entangled in the crimes of a murderer who will do anything to hide their secret. Louisa meets railway police officer Guy Sullivan early in the novel. He’s ambitious and yearns to join the ‘real’ police so, when Florence Nightingale Shore’s case goes cold, Guy continues investigating the murder himself. With occasional assistance (and encouragement) from Louisa and Nancy. It’s well written and researched, touching on a lot of issues of the time – just after WWI – including the impact of war on those fighting and those left behind, the position of women (their lack of formal schooling), the class system as well as families and relationships. It’s an entertaining mystery, with a few good red herrings, and a great period setting.
