Dig Deep for Murder (Manor House Mysteries) [Paperback]

Kate Kingsbury (Author)

Book Description

Series: Manor House Mysteries | Publication Date: December 3, 2002

Lady Elizabeth has turned the Manor House lawn into victory garden plots for the villagers. But an uninvited guest-in the form of a corpse-wilts the festivities...

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Berkley; First Edition edition (December 3, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0425188868
• ISBN-13: 978-0425188866
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #351,851 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I grew up in London, England, and at a very early age began telling stories to my school friends during the London Blitz of WW II while huddling in bomb shelters. I moved to the U.S. in the early sixties, and had passed my 50th birthday when I published my first book. Since then I've written over fifty romance and mystery novels. I have one son, and married for the second time shortly after my 60th birthday.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Better than the last entry, March 25, 2003

By 

Louis M. Perdue (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dig Deep for Murder (Manor House Mysteries) (Paperback)

I enjoyed this episode much more than I did the previous entry in this series. There is not much of a mystery and the author uses a plot that I have read before in another mystery with regards to how the murderer attempts to get by with his/her crime. This particular book is more of a chapter in the life of the village rather than a mystery as more time and words are spent on the daily trials and tribulations of WW II life in small-town England than the mystery itself. I had almost decided not to buy this book after the last one, but am glad I did and will definitely buy the next installment. I do have to say, as I said in my review of the previous book, that once again, there are typos in the book. Berkley Prime Crime, do you not have spellcheck?

14 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars delightfully refreshing cozy, December 16, 2002

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dig Deep for Murder (Manor House Mysteries) (Paperback)

World War II is raging and the residents of the small hamlet of Sitting Marsh are looking to the lady of the manor Lady Elizabeth for guidance during those perilous times. They don't know that the owner of the manor house is cash poor due to her ex-husband's gambling debts. Lady Elizabeth keeps up the appearance of a wealthy titled landowner so she can be a comfort to the villagers and an example of inspiration due to her contributions to the war effort.

She has donated a half-acre of her land to the villagers for a Victory Garden so they can grow fruits and vegetables to add variety to their rationed diets. When her assistant Polly takes over one of the plots of a recently deceased villager, she unearths the body of a man whose face is all smashed up. Feeling responsible for all her tenants, even those deceased, Lady Elizabeth embarks on her own investigation, one that almost gets her killed.

DIG DEEP FOR MURDER is a delightfully refreshing cozy that sheds some light on how the small English towns coped during the war years. The interaction of the heroine with her house staff and some of the more colorful villagers are quite humorous and helps defuse the action when it gets too intense. The mystery is well constructed and the heroine's investigation follows a logical path, which makes for a very believable plot appreciated by the audience.

Harriet Klausner

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I finished the book, but it's not a great book, March 28, 2004

By 

M. C. Crammer (Decatur, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Dig Deep for Murder (Manor House Mysteries) (Paperback)

My mother lived in England during World War II (married a GI), and I'm a history major, so I know a far amount about this period, but I don't think the author does. It sounds like she threw in a few tidbits and thought that was enough, but I thought she got a fair amount wrong. As to the mystery itself, it was obvious to me about half way through the book what was going on -- so obvious that I thought it had to be a red herring. It wasn't.

Still -- this was a pleasant enough book to read, and it held my interest reasonably well. It has a certain charm. I'm told that the other series by this author is better -- I hope so -- I just ordered some books in that series (before I'd read this book). This was simply not the kind of work you'd expect from someone who has published so much -- I wonder if it is an early work that got published after later work was successfully published.