Death at the Dance: An Addictive Historical Cozy Mystery

A Lady Eleanor Swift Mystery, Book 2

By: Verity Bright

Narrated by: Karen Cass

Length: 8 hrs and 26 mins

Publisher's Summary

A masked ball, a dead body, a missing diamond necklace and a suspicious silver candlestick? Sounds like a case for Lady Eleanor Swift! 

England, 1920. Lady Eleanor Swift, adventurer extraordinaire and reluctant amateur detective, is taking a break from sleuthing. She’s got much bigger problems: Eleanor has two left feet, nothing to wear and she’s expected at the masked ball at the local manor. Her new beau Lance Langham is the host, so she needs to dazzle. 

Surrounded by partygoers with painted faces, pirates, priests and enough feathers to drown an ostrich, Eleanor searches for a familiar face. As she follows a familiar pair of long legs up a grand staircase, she’s sure she’s on Lance’s trail. But she opens the door on a dreadful scene: Lance standing over a dead Colonel Puddifoot, brandishing a silver candlestick, the family safe wide open and empty. 

Moments later, the police burst in and arrest Lance for murder, diamond theft and a spate of similar burglaries. But Eleanor is convinced her love didn’t do it, and with him locked up in prison, she knows she needs to clear his name. 

Something Lance lets slip about his pals convinces Eleanor the answer lies close to home. Accompanied by her faithful sidekick Gladstone the bulldog, she begins with Lance’s friends - a set of fast driving, even faster drinking, high-society types with a taste for mischief. But after they start getting picked off in circumstances that look a lot like murder, Eleanor is in a race against time to clear Lance’s name and avoid another brush with death....

Fans of Agatha Christie, T E Kinsey and Downton Abbey will adore this tremendously fun cozy whodunnit, full of mystery, murder and intrigue! 

©2020 Verity Bright (P)2020 Bookouture

Great fun and an excellent mystery

Characters are well drawn and fun. Lots of good relationships and a taste of that era with lots of humour and excellent narration by Karen Cass

A most entertaining cozy mystery

Story is very slow and no true plot.

Characters spend more time insulting and complimenting each other. Otherwise they have no personality.

Entertaining and Witty

I have come to love this series. The relationship between the main characters is heartwarming and brings joy to my day. The plot is entertaining and narration is some of the best I’ve heard.

Another fun adventure with fabulous characters!

Another fun adventure with fabulous characters! I love Eleanor's spirit and tenacity! The fabulous butlers and staff characters are full as well as all the ancillary characters all have personality. The narrator is awesome too!!

Great Fun

The Lady Eleanor Swift stories are a little like the Royal Spyness series - great cozy mysteries with a lot of fun along the way. The dry wit of the unflappable butler Clifford is especially delightful. He and Lady Eleanor make an unusual but fantastic team.

Better than reading the book—which was also wonderful!

Amazed at how well Karen Cass brought all these wonderful people to life. So very well done!! Bravo!

fun and clever

fun as you get used to Elie--the main characters grow on you and become quite loveable

Fun period mystery

These books are fun. They're not meant to be taken too seriously, just a good bit of silliness. I remain puzzled as to why the books' synopsis always describe her dog as he her partner in crime solving. In fact, the dog only makes, a few cameo appearances. It's the wry and witty butler Clifford who is the real star.

Silly & a dreadful waste of time

This husband/wife writing team, pen name, Verity Bright, is, I fear, Verily Dull. They seem to have assembled tropes and British turns-of-phrase without understanding them ("Wot!")

I don't know how widely one must read to know that "sotto voce" means "soft/quiet voice" and not instruments playing softly, but the meaning should be evident in the term itself. To use the term "bowling along" to mean a man walking across a room, misunderstands that its British use indicates a carriage or similar vehicle moving at a rapid pace.
Verity "Bright" needs to do more research before using terms-of-art that they do not understand.

Although all that was grating enough, the book is peopled with two dimensional stock figures seemingly cut-and-pasted from other writers.

Drags

This is a nice fluff mystery with a sense of humor. IMHO, there is too much time spent on the “parties.” It gets rather old pretty quickly.
But, all in all it works if you are looking for a mystery novel that doesn’t take much concentration and has some humor.

Perfect!

Absolutely loved it! A good storyline and the narrator is fantastic...draws you into the story and brings the characters to life. Definitely recommend.

Good story, odd narration.

Story is very good and a nice light hearted escapist who-done-it.
Narrator ends every sentence in a flat, dead tone. Don't know why the dialogue is ok but the rest sounds like the narrator is on the verge of depression every sentence.

Death at the Dance

This Mystery is full of twists and turns as Lady Eleanor Swift rushed around to find the clues to find the killer. Fun high jinks with new friends and falling out with old ones. Read with great feeling from Karen Cass.

I Loved this Book.

Another book listened to by this author. I really enjoyed it. A very easy listen once again.
Lots of humour with a lot of twists & turns.
The narrator is spot on for this story.
I would definitely recommend it.

Absolutely Fantastic

I have only just come across theses books and if you love a period drama and a good detective story these are perfect. this is my second one on a matter of weeks.

Good story

I think this would have been a more enjoyable listen if the narrator didn’t seem so bored during the non dialogue. She seemed to just be trying to get through it, like a first script reading where the stage direction is something everyone else is reading and doesn’t mean much.