The Heiress of Linn Hagh

The Detective Lavender Mysteries, Book 1

By: Karen Charlton

Narrated by: Michael Page

Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's summary

Northumberland, 1809: A beautiful young heiress disappears from her locked bedchamber at Linn Hagh. The local constables are baffled and the townsfolk cry "witchcraft".

The heiress' uncle summons help from Detective Lavender and his assistant, Constable Woods, who face one of their most challenging cases: The servants and local gypsies aren't talking, Helen's siblings are uncooperative, and the sullen local farmers are about to take the law into their own hands.

Lavender and Woods find themselves trapped in the middle of a simmering feud as they uncover a world of family secrets, intrigue and deception in their search for the missing heiress.

Taut, wry, and delightful, The Heiress of Linn Hagh is a rollicking tale featuring Lavender and Woods—a double act worthy of Holmes and Watson.

©2015 Karen Charlton (P)2015 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved

Bad reviews are a harbinger to good story.

It's amazing how a bad review can sometimes pique your interest in a story and such is the case here. Reviewer's comments such as "Formulaic period piece with gratuitous Iberian temptress, evil and idiot half-sibs, loyal servants, gypsies in the woods, rustic but underdeveloped locals and a plucky heroine." actually made me curious and want to listen to this tale. Just my kind of story and I was not disappointed. Great writing and contrary to what an earlier reviewer stated, excellent narration with a variety of good vocal characterizations.

Slightly Cinderella overtones

And intricately written mystery. The historical details really added to the story. I enjoyed the solution to the locked room.

Gypsies, Tramps . . . and Greed

The first in the Detective Lavender series, set in Northumberland 1809 finds Detective Lavender and Constable Woods searching for a missing Heiress, Helen Carnaby, who has somehow escaped from her locked bedroom . . . a mystery which has them all scratching their heads. It doesn’t take the pair long to determine that the young woman is much maligned and hated by her step brother and, George Carnaby, and step sister, Isabel Carnaby. The servants in the house are keeping mum about it all. Fearful of retaliation from the drunken and vicious George Carnaby. They also have a brother, Matthew, a mute and mentally handicapped young man living in the woods, whom George beats ruthlessly. The only one who shows Mattie (Matthew) any kindness is his sister, Helen . . . and the gypsies living on the property. It seems that Helen is to be the sole heiress to her late father’s estate upon turning 21 years of age, a fact that her siblings abhor. The soon to be heiress, fearing for her life, seems to have vanished. But how? Talk about skeletons in the closet . . . This family has them . . . going back a long, long time . . . The children’s father, married twice, was first married to a mad woman . . . and after her death, some five years later, he married again. Detective Lavender sends for a copy of the father’s will, to determine what might have made the young heiress flee . . . I love this tale of intrigue, family secrets revealed and also of the relationship between Stephen Lavender and Ned Woods . . . not to mention Lavender’s attraction to Magdalena, the young refugee from Spain. . . Great book, great resolution . . . I will definitely be continuing with the series!

Delightful story

I wasn't sure what to expect, so I was pleasantly surprised. The story was wonderful, the narration was superb!

Family deceit

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It captured my attention from beginning to end. Wonderfully developed characters and great story line. It left me wanting to read more about Detective Lavender and Constable Woods. Beautiful heiress Helen Carnaby goes missing, and Lavender and Woods are employed by her uncle to find her. Thinking this a simple case of elopement, never in their wildest imagining did Lavender and Wood ever think this would wind up being a case steeped in murderous madness, violence and sinister family secrets. This one is well worth the read.

Interesting

A great period detective novel. The story is long and complex but the information was not superfluous. It was well written and well researched. If you are “reading” the audio version, check out this link http://www.thecra.co.uk/investigating-the-bow-street-runners-by-karen-charlton/ . This story is based on her research into a family member. I enjoy stories based on research. The main characters Detective Lavender and his assistant, Constable Woods are likable and work well together. Woods is the personal person, husband, and father. He builds relationships with the people and his size lends to intimation. Lavender is the well-dressed senior member, senior in position, who does the interrogation and putting the facts together.

We meet a Cinderella situation here with the medieval twist. All the sibling has the same father while the youngest has a different mother. Like Cinderella the heiress, who is missing, living circumstances is more restrictive than the servants. During medieval times, the man, even your half-brother has the authority to rule your life and funds.

So how does and intelligent woman, who is aware that her “family” is plotting against her, do with her 21st birthday nearing, disappear from a locked room.

Predictable, yet entertaining. Narration just OK.

Along with many others I felt like I had the plot line figured out 1/2 to 3/4's into the book. The story was so, so slow to develop, but was just entertaining enough to keep me going. The narrator was the least enjoyable part. Although Michael Page could beautifully speak the narration, anything requiring multiple voices of characters was cringe-worthy in his delivery. For example, almost all of the men had gravelly, growling, old-men voices which did little to help in distinguishing the characters and kept me from developing a rapport with anyone.

Mrs. Y Reviews - The Heiress of Linn Hagh

One of the book series I enjoyed when I was younger was Sherlock Holmes. There was something about the dynamic with Holmes and Watson and how the stories were laid out that registered with me from the classic series. I'm mentioning this because I found this audiobook for this week's review that hit all those notes I truly enjoyed from the classic Sherlock series and has its own unique and fascinating voice.

This week I am reviewing the Audible "The Heriss of Linn Hagh" by Karen Charlton, which is Book 1 of the Detective Lavender series. The period for this piece is during the Napoleonic period. Purchasing this audiobook to review was entirely on my own. I was rifling through similar titles to EM Powel and stumbled across this pretty gem of a book. I purchased this with my Audible plan, and you can find it there if you are interested.

I went into this thinking the book would be a good mystery novel, and I do love me some mystery. To those of you wonderful friends who read my reviews on the regular, you know that's probably my comfort zone genre now. There is something about having a good story with laid out puzzling pieces to figure out.

Let me jump into this review. We are going into critiques first because I want to get them out of the way. My main critique is a story structure that is common in mysteries, and I found a minor snafu in this one. When laying out red herrings and clues, it's good when someone can do that and make it clear what those red herrings and clues are. There was a clue that had been laid out, but it was so subtle and so gently put in that it wasn't even presented as a clue again for a good 1/3 of the book. This clue has to do with a primary antagonist and, it just wasn't clear that the clue was even a clue until much later.

I need to give props, though, and respect a writer their due because that was the big and only major issue I found in the entire store. Thus, my dear friends, let me go into the positives.

The structure of this story is fantastic. Aside from clue snaggles, everything else fell into a perfect cadence of mystery novel decidence. If this were a cake, it'd be a Chocolate Torte with all the sugar work and infinitely delicate technique work that a Torte needs. It was delicious.

As far as the pacing goes, it was beautifully paced. There are two parts initially to the story, that of the detectives and that of the clue elements that are infused in the narrative. And this story has the main story, but this sumptuous secondary plot is so fun and delightful. That secondary plot, by the way, oh, it's so good. I want to keep reading this series because that's the part I want to know more about for the life of Detective Lavander.

Now for my favorite part, the narration, and the Narrator is Michael Page. Michael has a fantastic cadence in how he speaks. I find his female characters very intriguing and believable, and his codgers are my favorite. I enjoyed how he told this story, and I think I may search for more titles to enjoy his performance more.

Lastly, every mystery needs a grounded, believable element as well as the unbelievable. What I found remarkable about this story is that the believable element is so believable that it logically makes sense to the story when the unbelievable comes in. In this case, it has to do with mental illness and how that affects families and dynamics with siblings. I'm not giving any spoilers here. I refuse. The story is too good for me to spoil it. The mental illness described in this book happened in a setting before the Victorian day, but it's still something that is addressed and yet not addressed.

There also is a good deal about how racism and prejudice, and playing to people's fears of the unknown, are used as means of control. People with wealth and influence can manipulate people with lower incomes to do things they may not normally do, using gaslighting techniques. Sound familiar to real life? I thought so. And it was demonstrated beautifully as an element of the story. I hope that this kind of thematic discussion continues in future books.

Overall, after scoring, I give "The Heiress of Linn Hagh" a score of 97/100, which is a 5-star review, on Audible, The Reading Desk, Goodreads, and my blog. If you are interested in a copy, check out Audible. And please, leave me a comment on my blog or The Reading Desk anytime!

Thanks for reading, catch you soon!

Enthralling

Enjoyed from start to finish. Never saw the twist ending coming! Highly recommend to anyone that loves a good mystery.

Great listen!!

Loved everything... the story, the artist’s performance and delivery! Can’t wait to listen to more books read by Mr. Page or to read more of Ms. Charlon’s stories! A poor reader can destroy a good book... a bad story can sometimes be rescued by a talented reader. This book and Mr. Page made it so I raced to listen as often as I could!