Amy Myers' Dancing with Death, a humorous country house mystery set in the Roaring Twenties

Crackling cauliflowers and suffering stockfish! The heroine of Amy Myers’ diverting new country house mystery is a feisty young woman known for her culinary delights and colorful expressions.

In 1925, Nell Drury is the chef at Wychbourne Court, a stately home in the Kentish countryside where the upper-class Ansley family has lived for centuries. The manor has its share of resident ghosts, and Lord Ansley’s sister, Lady Clarice, claims to communicate with them.

A fancy-dress ball brings many of London’s Bright Young Things to Wychbourne, including friends and frenemies of Lord and Lady Ansley’s grown-up children. Nell’s preparations for the evening get complicated when she’s asked to serve a leader for a late-night “ghost hunt.” She’s also caught off guard by an old flame’s reappearance.

When Nell comes upon the stabbed body of a houseguest during the spook-catching exercise, Scotland Yard gets called in, and Lady Ansley, rightly concerned about her family’s reputation, asks Nell to go sleuthing on her own in case the police mess things up.

Nell is entertaining company. Born within the sound of Bow Bells, Nell had trained as the apprentice of a renowned French chef at a fine London establishment. She now occupies a unique position in the household (she’s a chef, not a cook, and will correct anyone who gets it wrong). This helps with her investigations.

The plot and cast list feel overcrowded, and some people’s personalities don’t seem to extend beyond their eccentricities. However, the story picks up steam once the victim’s secrets come to light. Myers does a good job depicting the reckless jubilance of the Roaring Twenties and the darkness lurking beneath the surface gleam. The crime is also resolved more realistically than is typical in mysteries with amateur sleuths.

Dancing with Death, first in a new series, was published by Severn House in May.  Amy Myers has written many crime novels, both historical and contemporary, as well as sagas under her own name and as Harriet Hudson (see her website for more). This review also appears in May's HNR.