Recent Reads: The Freddy Pilkington-Soames Adventures, by Clara Benson – a pretty satisfying period-piece murder mystery series
I picked the first book up as a free book on Kobo, and it did its job: I have now read the entire series, and have another book by the same author in another series to start.
Our Hero, Freddy Pilkington-Soames, is not as half-witted as his name suggests he might be, but he’s not a serious young man, particularly in the first book in this series, A CASE OF BLACKMAIL IN BELGRAVIA, wherein he becomes embroiled in a murder case purely by accident and he’d very much rather be anywhere else. He spends a great deal of this book wishing he hadn’t gotten tangled up in this, but feels he’d better see it through, and I enjoyed pretty much every minute of his conundrums. :)
He becomes a bit more serious as the series goes on, and the various travails of his love life, newspaper profession, and the people around him are well-written and good fun; the mysteries are solid enough, and the period-pieceness of the series really sings. If you like historical cozies, this is probably a good series for you. :)