Customer Reviews

Pay the Piper (A Pennyfoot Hotel Mystery)

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The eighth of the series, this one focuses on Scotish pipers who arrive to stir up trouble. Besides the brutal murder of one of the pipers, the staff has to deal with ghosts and romance. Gertie is now a mother and asks Cicely and Baxter to be godparents. Meanwhile Cicely and Baxter's relationship begins to advance creating anticipation for both and the reader. Fine mystery.

Kingsbury still has a great many problems with making me believe that I am in Edwardian England. She doesn't convince me that this is a small town, where tourism is important. She doesn't give me anything to believe that her characters are anything but one dimensional. She lacks the ability to use time correctly. So how does she have a following and get people to buy her books?

This time out, the mystery is a little better. You don't see the conclusion coming at you from page one. You get a little Red Herring so that you might wonder at who did the who dun it. The ambiance provided as we delve into turn of the century bag-piping again doesn't ring true as the later period introduction to Scotland you would have seen in Chariots of Fire gives you honesty.

Here once again we have classes of society that are false. In previous books the housemaid was chastised for her swearing. Here is is everytime she speaks. Just not believable. In a hotel where royalty has honored the halls? Here we have the failed storyline of the white officer son moving back to the village to run the pub, with a black wife having not worked and not contributed to the story and shown the heroine just isn't a mother (Living less than a mile away from her son and they never see each other unless there is a murder clue at the pub?) so he is off back to africa, but let us make an unimportant stab and make them expecting is too much of a cliche.

Then the head butler of the hotel has become more of a general manager in this book for he is doing the accounting, which should fall into our heroines hands with the death of her husband. And without any warmth of affection or courting because he is handy, the author has decided that he shall be the love interest. I am so totally sure that middle aged women must be so lonely for affections that they will look at the man they see the most, even though he always disdains your actions, as the man you want to bed.

So is there a recommendation. Don't spend money on these. Get somewhere for free like the library. You don't get anything historical out of them. The mystery is better elsewhere, and the encompassing story of the series, just isn't captivating.

This Pennyfoot Hotel series is enjoyable. The mysteries are a bit simplistic, but the characters are wonderful. It gives us a good look at life below and above stairs. Sometimes I think the servants are the best in these books. Gertie is a treasure and now that she is a mother of twin babies, it makes for very entertaining reading. In this book the Pennyfoot is helping Badger's End celebrate Robbie Burns day with a bagpipe competition. Things really heat up when the body of one of the contestants is found in the basement of the local butcher. But these books are about the characters, and lots is going on with them in this one. Cecily and Baxter's relationship appears to be advancing, and Gertie finds someone. Great stuff!