A Case of Suicide in St. James's

A Freddy Pilkington-Soames Adventure, Book 5

By: Clara Benson

Narrated by: Gethyn Edwards

When Douglas Westray, the son of an eminent aircraft manufacturer, is found shot dead in a locked room at a society ball, it seems obvious that it’s suicide - after all, he had two failed engagements behind him, and had lost the family firm a prestigious prize through his own neglect. But not everybody is convinced - including Freddy Pilkington-Soames, who soon discovers that there are still questions to be answered. Why was Douglas wearing the wrong shoes when he was found? What is the connection with a near-disaster at an air show? And was Freddy’s narrow escape from death under the wheels of a car an accident or something more sinister?

Assisted by his old friend, the wayward and irrepressible Lady Gertie McAloon, and pestered at every turn by rival reporter Corky Beckwith, Freddy finds himself drawn into a world of sabotage, blackmail, and shady deals which threaten to scupper the success of a new fighter plane before it even gets off the ground. But there’s more at stake than just money, and now it’s up to Freddy to untangle the clues and unravel the dark secret of a murderer who has already killed at least once and will think nothing of killing again.

©2019 Clara Benson (P)2019 Clara Benson

Love

I’ll forever follow the character Freddy; his quite the character to say the least! Write more please!

Another adventure!

Freddie keeps getting himself in the middle of murders. A lot of red herrings and interesting characters!

Least favorite of series so far.

In spite of title of this review, this was still enjoyable and I will be getting book six in the series when it arrives. This one was just hard to get interested in and I’m not quite sure why. Maybe too many characters initially that weren’t fleshed out enough to make them interesting enough to try to keep straight during the set up? I had to restart after I had put it to the side when it wasn’t keeping my attention. Once I did get back to it, had to start over to try to figure out all these bit parts and where/how/who they were connected with.
As I said, I will be continuing with the series but I’m so glad this wasn’t the first I had read in the five titles currently part of series or I would never have gotten to the other 4.

Love this series!

Fun characters, great sense of time and place. Narrator rather lugubrious so knocked the speed up to 1.05.

Mostly excellent

Clara writes very well and obviously enjoys herself so her readers do too. This one starts well and goes fine until the very end where it seemed to me that she opted for a clunky trite wrap up that left me wondering why. Usually I enjoy these novels to the last drop.

weak

the plot is just not engaging. predictable. narrator went from tolerable to tiresome. speaks too slowly when he's narrating and then speeds up too much when he reads dialogue so you can't change the speed. I think this series is dragging.