‘Chaos at Carnegie Hall’ by Kelly Oliver

Also on the tour today, InsomniacBookwormBookreviews and Books by Bindu

Agatha Christie meets ‘Downton Abbey’ in the Fiona Figg and Kitty Lane Mystery series opener.

Can Fiona catch a killer and find a decent cup of tea before her moustache wax melts?

1917. New York.

Notorious spy, Fredrick Fredricks, has invited Fiona to Carnegie Hall to hear a famous soprano. It’s an opportunity the War Office can’t turn down. Fiona and Clifford are soon on their way, but not before Fiona is saddled with chaperon duties for Captain Hall’s niece. Is Fiona a spy or a glorified babysitter?

From the minute Fiona meets the soprano aboard the RMS Adriatic it’s treble on the high C’s. Fiona sees something—or someone—thrown overboard, and then she overhears a chemist plotting in German with one of her own countrymen!

And the trouble doesn’t stop when they disembark. Soon Fiona is doing time with a group of suffragettes and investigating America’s most impressive inventor Thomas Edison.

When her number one suspect turns up dead at the opera and Fredrick Fredricks is caught red-handed, it looks like it’s finally curtains for the notorious spy.

But all the evidence points to his innocence. Will Fiona change her tune and clear her nemesis’ name? Or will she do her duty? And just what is she going to do with the pesky Kitty Lane? Not to mention swoon-worthy Archie Somersby . . .

If Fiona’s going to come out on top, she’s going to have to make the most difficult decision of her life: the choice between her head and her heart.

In the best spirit of the Golden Age detective fiction, Kelly Oliver’s opening instalment of her new series, the Fiona Figg and Kitty Lane Mysteries.

Oliver is an accomplished author – her Pet Detective Mysteries are particular favourites of mine – and she is clearly a very busy lady (Professor of Philosophy too? Slow down, Prof, you’re showing the rest of us up).

Here, the Tennessee-based writer is ticking a number of my boxes – transatlantic travel, Golden Age setting, spies and espionage chicanery. What’s not to like?

Oliver has crafted an engaging cast of characters for such a cosy, escapist adventure. There’s a healthy dose of the appropriate period attitudes for Figg to navigate and we can only imagine the frustration which women of her ability must have felt at the shoddy nature of their treatment.

If you are looking for a tidily written, transatlantic romp in the best traditions of the old school, ‘Chaos at Carnegie Hall’ belings on your to be read pile.

Purchase Link – https://amzn.to/3dMIUoT

Author Bio –

Kelly Oliver is the award-winning, bestselling author of three mysteries series: The Jessica James Mysteries, The Pet Detective Mysteries, and the historical cozies The Fiona Figg Mysteries, set in WW1. She is also the Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University and lives in Nashville, Tennessee. She is bringing new titles in the Fiona Figg series to Boldwood, the first of which, ‘Chaos in Carnegie Hall’, will be published in November 2022.

Social Media Links –  

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kellyoliverauthor 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/kellyoliverbook 

Bookbub profile: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/kelly-oliver