Mrs. Jeffries Holds the Trump [Hardcover]

Emily Brightwell (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 245 pages
• Publisher: Berkley (2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0739497405
• ISBN-13: 978-0739497401
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,230,600 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was born in West Virginia, the middle sister to Nanette and Linda. My parents moved the family to Los Angeles in the early sixties, and I graduated from Pasadena High School. I attended California State University at Fullerton and earned a Degree in American Studies.
On a visit to England in 1975, I met my future husband, Richard. We were married in May 1976 and lived in a small village outside London. We came back to California in September 1977.
In 1988 I began my new career as a fiction writer. Although I was working in the shipping industry, and enjoyed my job, I wanted to fulfil my long-held desire to write!
I began by writing romances. I joined the Romance Writers of America - Orange County chapter. After my entry in the "unpublished authors" contest run by this chapter was announced as a finalist - I was delighted, but the New York editor who read my entry was scathing in her criticism. I was crushed for a day or so, but it hardened my resolve to continue writing. My very next proposal was the one that my agent sold to Silhouette. It was published under my pen name of Sarah Temple as KINDRED SPIRITS. I was thrilled - a published author!

I wrote two more Special Editions for Silhouette but I jumped at the chance to write a Victorian mystery series for Berkley - I've always had a keen interest in mysteries. I called my brother-in-law, Robert, who lives in London and he found old,original London newspapers from the 1880s and a host of books on Victorian households. These books and newspapers were priceless guides to my understanding of the real Victorian world of Inspector Witherspoon and Mrs. Jeffries.
I have also written some Young Adult novels,which are not currently in print - writing as Cheryl Lanham - my maiden name. These were such fun to write because teenagers are so emotional and it was great therapy to switch from the lives of a Victorian household involved in solving murders to the angst of a contemporary California teenager! By some strange quirk of events, the Young Adult books sold really well in Norway - translated into Norwegian, I hasten to add. Sales in the United States were not as dramatic and the series was cancelled.

I quit my part-time job in October 2010 so I could write mysteries full-time. I live in southern Orange County.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Victorian era whodunit, June 3, 2008

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mrs. Jeffries Holds the Trump (Mass Market Paperback)

Inspector Weatherspoon is considered the shining superstar of the Metropolitan Police Department of Scotland Yard, but few people know he gets help in solving tough cases. Led by his housekeeper Mrs. Jeffries, his household staff uses their under the stairs contacts to gather information that is serendipitously fed to the Inspector.

When mortician Dr. Bodworth sees the body of Michael Prescott on his table, he is shocked that the police assume an accident occurred. He visits Mrs. Jeffries to ask her to investigate; she and the staff gladly agree; while Prescott's attorney and housekeeper go to the police to argue he was murdered. They say Michael was investigating the disappearance of a friend who was publican and a bookie when he died. Inspector Weatherspoon gets the case and learns Prescott was writing to the police begging them to look into his friend's vanishing. No on in the Yard will admit to reading the letters and every clue leads to a wider puzzle, leaving the Inspector and his housekeeper to wonder if this is the one that got away.

Very few writers can consistently provide an entertaining historical cozy as Emily Brightwell does with her Mrs. Jeffries tales. The current Victorian era case is interesting catching the reader's attention due in part to recurring characters, but also because the police are under suspicion by the physician and team Jeffries. Readers will appreciate this latter half ninetieth century whodunit as Ms. J, her staff and her employer provide the audience with a strong investigation and a deep look at Victorian England.

Harriet Klausner

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Cozy Mystery, June 25, 2008

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drebbles (Arlington, MA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mrs. Jeffries Holds the Trump (Mass Market Paperback)

Inspector Gerald Witherspoon has had tough murder cases to solve in the past, but his most recent case is particularly hard. The victim, Michael Provost, seemed to have no enemies, greedy relatives, or business rivals. Witherspoon has few clues one of which is that Provost was asking a lot of questions about the disappearance of a friend of his. It's going to take everything Witherspoon has to solve this case. Luckily he has his faithful servants, led by housekeeper Mrs. Jeffries, to help him (even if he doesn't know it!).

"Mrs. Jeffries Holds the Trump" is the latest entry in Emily Brightwell's wonderful Inspector and Mrs. Jeffries cozy mystery series - a series that never fails to delight. The series is set in Victorian England and in this book Brightwell puts in a great historical element - Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes mysteries - that adds much to the plot of the book as it is believed that Michael Provost was imitating Holmes as he looked into the disappearance of his friend. I love the fact that while Witherspoon's staff helps him investigate the murder with each book he gets better and better at investigating the crimes. I was pleased to see Ruth Cannonberry have a larger role in this book. What makes this series work for me is that the characters, while familiar at this point in the series, continue to grow, rather than stagnate. Wiggins in particular had some great moments (I wanted to hug him by the end of the book). And Witherspoon has a wonderful confrontation with Inspector Nivens that will have readers cheering. The mystery itself is well plotted and readers will have a hard time figuring out who would want to kill someone as well liked as Provost. Brightwell does a good job of switching between Witherspoon (with Inspector Barnes) and the servants investigating the case and all of them discover important clues. There are plenty of suspects and readers will have a hard time figuring out who the killer is as Brightwell continues to be Agatha Christie-like in her plotting.

"Mrs. Jeffries Holds the Trump" is a delightful cozy mystery.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The perfect housekeeper strikes again, July 5, 2008

By 

Allan H. Clark (Carlsbad, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mrs. Jeffries Holds the Trump (Mass Market Paperback)

One can imagine it was much easier to get good servants in Victorian days, but the bachelor Inspector Witherspoon has had amazing good fortune in recruiting a staff that not only keeps his house well run, but advances his career by solving his cases for him. He, of course, is unaware of their covert assistance, which has boosted his reputation as the best detective in the Metropolitan Police Force.

Of course one wonders how such a marvelous detective has failed to notice so much surreptitious activity among his household staff and never suspects how much assistance he gets from Mrs. Hepzibah Jeffries in particular, but this formula is actually a great help to the author: she not only has the services of the Inspector himself, who does occasionally uncover a useful fact on his own and who makes the arrests, but of all those on his staff who are able to fan out through the city and bring in bits and pieces. This makes the evidence gathering a bit livelier and far more flexible than the standard formula in which the detective duly and dully makes the rounds of suspects and witnesses himself. Mrs. Jeffries is the synthesizer who pulls it all together.

As far as I know, the detective as group is a new wrinkle in mystery fiction and anyone who can come up with anything new in this genre is indeed to be congratulated.