An Easy Day for a Lady [Hardcover]

Gillian Linscott (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1995

Energetic suffragette Nell Bray, off on a climbing holiday, sees a rescue team unearthing an Englishman lost to a glacier thirty years ago and cannot resist getting involved when she learns his death may not have been an accident.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

It's 1910, and nosy, energetic Nell Bray, British suffragette and sometime sleuth seen last in Stage Fright, is vacationing at the resort town of Chamonix in the French Alps. Nell is climbing a mountain slope when the body of Arthur Mordiford is freed from the ice nearby?30 years after he and his guide were lost to an avalanche. Arriving to claim the body are the victim's wealthy brother Gregory (a member of the original climbing party), who has brought his son, daughter and a nephew, who hires Nell as interpreter to help with the red tape. They are staying with the guide's widow, Marie, and her daughter Sylvie. A diary found on Arthur's body raises questions about Sylvie's parentage and tensions abound, reaching a climax after Gregory, leading a family pilgrimage to the site of the body's discovery, is poisoned and Marie is arrested for his murder. Nell joins forces with Arthur's onetime fiancee, for many years a contented recluse in the area, to find the truth about the brothers' deaths, past and present. Plotting goes from over-elaborate to numbing in this tale best recommended for its well-crafted evocation of time and place.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

A new addition to the mystery series featuring Nell Bray, the turn-of-the-century British feminist. Disgusted by the House of Commons' rejection of the suffrage bill of 1910, Nell embarks on a mountain-climbing trip to Chamonix in the French Alps. Her retreat is interrupted, however, when a frozen body is discovered in the snow. Quickly identified as an Englishman who died in a climbing accident 30 years earlier, the body is claimed by the victim's family, who hires Nell as an interpreter. Soon Nell is embroiled in intrigue as the "accident" turns out to be murder, and then death rears its head again. Although both sleuth and setting are unique, they never overpower the plot--there are sufficient twists and turns here to keep even the most inveterate puzzle solvers happy. An entertaining romp. Ilene Cooper

Product Details

• Hardcover: 210 pages
• Publisher: St Martins Pr (February 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312118112
• ISBN-13: 978-0312118112
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,490,584 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent mystery, enjoyable and complex plot, August 7, 2011

By 

J. Schwarz "Informed Woman" (Philadelphia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: An Easy Day for a Lady (Hardcover)

I had this book on my shelves for at least two years, and finally started it last night. It really was one of those mysteries that you can't put down until you've finished it, and then you don't want it to end. In 1910, Nell Bray is an amateur detective and a strong suffragist who goes off mountain climbing so she won't give in to her impluse to throw a brick at young Winston Churchill, who she holds responsible for killing the suffrage bill in Parliment.

When she is about to run out of money and have to return home, she is hired by an English family who has heard of her skills as a detective and a translator. They have come to take home to England the body of Arthur, who fell to his death 30 years ago during a mountain climbing expedition. His body has just been discovered in the melting glacier. His brother (who had been on the original climb)and his two children plus a nephew make up the somewhat grieving family. But -- did he die as assumed or was he killed, and if so, by whom?