Murder at Melrose Court

Heathcliff Lennox Series, Book 1

By: Karen Menuhin

Narrated by: Sam Dewhurst-Phillips

Length: 6 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's Summary

Downton Abbey meets Agatha Christie with a touch of Wodehouse and a dog of distinction.

It's 1920, and Christmas is coming. 

Major Lennox finds a body on his doorstep - why on his doorstep? Was it to do with the Countess? Was it about the ruby necklace? Lennox goes to Melrose Court, home to his uncle, Lord Melrose, to uncover the mystery. But then, the murders begin, and it snows, and it all becomes very complicated.

Major Heathcliff Lennox, ex-WW1 war pilot, six feet 3 inches, tousled, dark blond hair, age around 30 - named after the hero of Wuthering Heights by his romantically minded mother - much to his great annoyance. Murder at Melrose Court is the first book in the Lennox series.

©2018 Karen Menuhin (P)2019 Karen Menuhin

Cozy, but not too sweet

This series has a nice dose of humor AND reality mixed in with the "cozy" aspect of the mystery. This first book is a little sillier than the ones that come after. There was enough true mystery to make me want to go on with the series, even though cozies aren't normally my thing. The performance was quite well done. I could actually tell the characters apart by their voices, unlike some narrations. Highly recommend!

Perfect for a fall or winter evening!

Loved everything about this first in what I hope to be a long series! Loved the characters, the setting, the humor, and the narration by Sam Dewhurt-Phillips was spot on! A lot of cliché rolled in with the humor and is not in my opinion out of place. Set in the 1920s, in the English Countryside in a manor house chock full of odd characters with their own secrets and snowbound for Christmas? Oh yes! For Anglophiles, Agatha Christie devotees, Cozy Mystery lovers, dog lovers, and anyone in need of a jolly good yarn. Well done Ms. Menuhin! Great blend of something old and something new!

Hope this is a series ....

So refreshing and different I purposely prolonged the ending because it was such an entertaining and enjoyable mystery!!

Absolute best narrator!

Delightful old fashioned mystery. Read by a master.
So good that I plan to listen to it again.

Pleasantly surprised

I am a dedicated reader of the the Golden Age of Mystery so I am always skeptical about contemporary attempts to contribute to the library. I bought this title based on the strength of the reviews and at first I thought I'd made a mistake. This book definitely took some time to get in to but I ended up finishing it in a single sitting. A few classic nods to masters definitely made me chuckle. Solidly on the Cozy Crime shelf of the library but I for now it's earned it's place. I look forward to Audible producing a few more. Definitely keep the Sam as the narrator.
Happy sleuthing!

Fantastic

I’ve never left a review, but I really enjoyed this book more than I anticipated I would. And the narrator is absolutely fantastic!

Loved it!

I started this book yesterday and finished it today. Interesting characters, engaging plot, just a great read. Highly recommend!

What a fun read/listen!

Fun Agatha Christie type mystery with great characters and Lennox.
Fun too to find more alliterations throughout the story.
My new Most Favorite narrator Sam Dewhurst Phillips. He drew each character with love & fun. They each were so individual. Great fun, I want more stories and more Sam Dewhurst-Phillips.

Can't wait for a sequel

Enjoyed this one so much. Good story-line, interesting characters, nice plot twists, and excellent naration. Hope the author makes this wacky family of characters into a series. If you like post WW1 period English mysteries with a good amount of humor, this is a definite buy.

Cozy Christmas murder mystery

Loved it, just what the doctor ordered. Very entertaining and well read!! I look forward to hearing the rest of the books!!

pantomime!

I have read quite a few Country House Murders and some have obviously been better than others. Following other reviews, I was expecting to really 'snuggle' into this one and enjoy the entertaining tale. Unfortunately, I was sorely disappointed. The story was badly written with cheap tricks and turns throughout. The narrator gave some extremely strange pronunciations which proved to be very irritating and the final line was a complete joke.
I had the feeling the story was either written by an American or aimed at the American audience with strange vocabulary and the characters drinking coffee throughout and never tea (even at tea-time!).
The accents were bizarre and generally the whole production smacked of pantomime rather than a classic, stylized British murder.
Very disappointing and will not be reading any others in the series.

Poor quality for a published book

I am annoyed to have wasted one of my credits on this story. It has every imaginable cliche and stereotype of the English upper classes of the period and I think it is how an American thinks we lived back then. There is no intelligence in the writing. The characters and the plot are weak and two dimensional. There is no genuine feel for the period or for the place. It is not enough to depict an Englishman by giving him constant comments about the weather, and talking about 'the bill' or 'old bill' - that grated.
The narrator tries his best with posh English but it's clear he isn't a native. His working class accents are laughable - people move from Norfolk to West Country to Irish accents within the same speech. Strange that this country house seems to have drawn it employees from all over Britain.
All in all I wouldn't recommend and I am appalled by the poor quality of writing that gets published these days - especially in this genre. I suppose it's to do with kindle and self publishing. There are some real gems amongst the genre - J C Briggs (alas not on audible) and Frances Brody's Kate Shackleton. Much of the rest is mediocre or worse - like this book. Don't waste your credit on it like I did!

Country House Murder has the Mickey Properly Taken

Warning - do NOT take this seriously. Very nice pish take of the tradishional 'English Country House Murder', English manners and English prejudices of the 1920s. Over the top Butlers, solid peasants who quote poetry in their spare time and blindingly blinkered upper class snobs and twits abound. "Oh I say, who let the bally dog out?" etc (includes obligatory naughty dog).

Fun to read but weird Americanisms

Why on earth write an English country house murder story and fill it with American pronunciations, words, and habits? Most distracting.

Fantastic

I enjoyed this audiobook so much that I bought the sequel before I’d even finished this book.

The narration is really good, the plot was interesting with lots of twists, and the characters are likeable.

I will definitely be looking out for more books by this author.

It is fun

Old fashioned who dunnit, that is not so convoluted that you cannot work out who! I Enjoyed the light heartedness, the orators voice is perfect for this story.

Brilliant narration.

Absolutely everything that you could want from this genre of fiction & really well written. Highly engaging and enjoyable, I hope that the author has every intention of progressing this series with her amusing, entertaining but mischievously sardonic protagonist for a good while to come. The narrator was totally brilliant. I am just coming to the end of the second book, where's the third?!?

Enjoyable listen

Fun , easy listen . Excellent narration , I didn’t fall asleep as wanted to know ‘who done it’

What a great book

This is a great book. Easy read a brilliant narrator. Hope the series comes onto audible.

Highly Entertaining

The story was brilliantly constructed and the narration was spot on. Thoroughly enjoyed it.