No Cure for the Dead

The Florence Nightingale Mysteries, Book 1

By: Christine Trent

Narrated by: Lucy Rayner

Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins

Publisher's summary

When a young nurse dies on her watch, Florence Nightingale must uncover the deep-hidden secrets someone will kill to keep buried.

It is 1853. Lady of the Lamp Florence Nightingale has just accepted the position of superintendent of the Establishment for Gentlewomen during Temporary Illness in London. She has hardly had time to learn the names of the nurses in her charge when she suddenly finds one of them hanging in the establishment's library. Her name was Nurse Bellamy.

Florence's mettle is tested by the dual goals of preserving what little reputation her hospital has and bringing Nurse Bellamy's killer to justice. Her efforts are met with upturned noses and wayward glances, except for her close friend and advocate inside the House of Commons, Sidney Herbert. As Florence digs deeper, however, her attention turns to one of the hospital investors and suddenly, Sidney becomes reluctant to help.

With no one but herself to count on, Florence must now puzzle out what the death of an unknown, nondescript young nurse has to do with conspiracies lurking about at the highest levels of government - before she is silenced too.

©2019 Christine Trent (P)2019 Blackstone Publishing

Excellent Historical Mystery

For those of us who LOVE historical, detailed stories about real people, this one hits the spot quite nicely! I'm disappointed in listeners who do not have the patience or interest to want to know about the circumstances, customs and hardships endured by those who have gone before us in opening the path into such professions as nursing, science and medicine. Nursing was at first thought to be only a job for the low born . . . for prostitutes, for those who could do nothing else . . . and Florence Nightingale single handedly changed that. And it was at great cost to her. Although this book is a work of fiction, it contains many details which are appropriate to the time in which it was written, and it makes me thank the good Lord that I was not born in 1820 . . . or even 1920 . . . because women have long had to fight for the simplest of human rights and to be regarded as their own person, capable of making good decisions. In this excellent story, Florence recognizes that the nurse who she discovered hanging from a rope, didn't kill herself, but instead was a victim of murder, but trying to convince the doctors or the police of it, or getting them to investigate the death or even care about it is most difficult. Florence is only a week into her appointment as the superintendent of the Institute for the Care of Sick Gentlewomen, and her position is already in a precarious state. Yet, the pursuit of the truth is more important to her than her position. Her investigations lead her down a dangerous path. Great tale and excellent conclusion!

Excellent

If you like cozy mysterious and cozy historíes…you’ll love this book! Well written and really well narrated!

Founder of Modern Nurses

I loved this mystery with Florence Nightingale as the investigator. The obvious differences between nursing practice today and what the practice was then was fascinating. The murder investigation was quite convoluted and the resolution was good. This should be interesting to anyone who likes medical mysteries and likes stories about strong women.

I enjoyed this book

I enjoyed this book. The narration was awesome. I will look for other narrated books by her!

Florence Nightingale

This was a very enjoyable story, I did learn about hospital conditions during the 1800’s.
the narrator did an excellent job.

Disagree

I read some of the earlier reviews regarding the reader and not liking her performance. I found the book easy to listen to and was not distracted by the reader or her technique. I did listen at 1.3x speed.

Female detective

As the story continued, it drew me in. I had no idea who done it.
surprise,surprise.

Poor narration

It may have been a good story but I found the narrator's voice condescending and irritating . It prevented me from finishing it.

Interesting

This was an interesting storyline with caveats. I would have loved to hear more the actual process of solving the mystery as well as about hospital improvements and the shaping up of staff and protocols. But the pace got bogged down with two things: frequent internal reminiscing into Miss Nightingale’s past and non-stop, so-called accidents. After awhile, the “accidents” became tedious and rarely seemed to advance the plot. They just told us that, once again, someone was out to get those getting close to clues. The narrator was very good; though after awhile, I could hear the chirp sound she make at the end of sentences, usually after t or d sounds.

Great story, maybe an editor could trim it?

The story is good. But it could use a good editor to help it move along a bit more quickly. The slow narration didn't help, either. Pushing the speed up to 1.1 or 1.2 helped as well.