Grounds for Murder (Pennyfoot Hotel Mysteries) [Paperback]

Kate Kingsbury (Author)

Book Description

Series: Pennyfoot Hotel Mysteries | Publication Date: August 1, 1995

The London aristocracy has discovered the pleasures of seaside holidays in Badgers End, and it's Cecily Sinclair's job to keep them comfortable and entertained as the owner of the Pennyfoot Hotel. Detective work is not part of her duties - but Cecily is only too willing to help the local constable when death pays an unexpected visit...

Product Details

• Paperback: 236 pages
• Publisher: Berkley (August 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0425149013
• ISBN-13: 978-0425149010
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #716,915 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

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An important book in the series, October 3, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Grounds for Murder (Pennyfoot Hotel Mysteries) (Paperback)

For those who enjoy the excellent Pennyfoot Hotel mystery series by Kate Kingsbury (and new readers too!), GROUNDS FOR MURDER is a must-read. Not only for the mystery itself; what's excellent about this latest installment is, as always, the development of the characters! A new maid, Doris, is introduced, but there's something very peculiar about her. Could she be the link in the latest murder in Badgers End? And what about the mysterious attack on the harmless and hapless Colonel Fortescue?

And for those of us who read the series mainly to follow the relationship between the two protagonists, Cecily Sinclair (widow, owner of the Pennyfoot and amateur sleuth) and her manager Baxter, this book is indispensable. It's the landmark installment where Cecily FINALLY begins to realize her true feelings for her faithful, compassionate, ever-stuffy manager. He is her employee, and the year is 1908; with all the restrictions of protocol during that time, can there be any hope for a relationship between them? Class restriction was very strict, and the "forbidden" aspect to their feelings definitely adds spice to the story.

So in other words, highly recommended. Buy the book--in fact, buy all the books in the whole darn series because it's so good. If you're a fan of cozy mysteries, you really shouldn't miss out!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Better than before, but still in need of period authenticity, February 28, 2009

By 

David Wilkin (La Habra Heights, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Grounds for Murder (Pennyfoot Hotel Mysteries) (Paperback)

Thankfully things are a little better at the Pennyfoot these days. Mystery and Red Herring wise. The language and situations we are expected to believe that our staff at the hotel get into is still extremely hard to credit.

Edwardian England meets the 90's of the end of the century. "Put a sock in it." Is not very Edwardian, or even British. But when our writer has been exposed to American television culture, one can see that she falls to it. Then she has issues with prose, 'Her enormous hat was a magnificent concoction of ribbons and ostrich plumes in brilliant shades of purple and pink...' Reading this makes the entirety that much worse than it should be. The author further sites Dickens and Sherlock Holmes (not Conan Doyle) as good literature for her time. Dickens of course is fifty years prior, and Conan Doyle is very populist at the moment.

At least Kingsbury's mystery is solvable whereas some of the jumps the 'Master', Holmes made defied all logic and clues in the novels. Here there are a few clues, but the Red Herring keeps you distracted enough that the work is better than most of the previous part of the collection. There are still problems with the entirety though.

The sleuths son, such a trial in the last issue and just a few hundred feet away, is mentioned in one line in this novel. A great hotel, or converted manor house. This story she has not monopolized the Library for her office, but as a hotel the named staff seems too few. And they still suffer from an operational issue, hotel business will not wait, but here conveniently for the time of the story needing to develop, characters still forget or put off doing the daily and hourly tasks that need attention in any hotel of the period.

Pick this up and have a gander but avoid the others after the first.

4.0 out of 5 stars A good one this time, December 22, 2008

By 

S. Schwartz "romonko" (alberta canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Grounds for Murder (Pennyfoot Hotel Mysteries) (Paperback)

This book seemed to get back on track after the disappointment of the previous book (Check Out Time). I love the characters in this series, and this book lets us get to see them a lot more. Of course the maid Gertie is my favourite, but I love to watch the interplay between Cecily and Baxter as well. Cecily and Baxter are trying to solve another mystery that seems to involve their hotel. Young gypsy women are being murdered in the woods beside the hotel, and they are being discovered without their heads. And an axe seems to keep going missing from the hotel's woodshed. This is a fun series with wonderful characters set in the Georgian time period. I would recommend it to anyone who likes cozies.