Thank you Net Galley. A delightful cozy mystery from Ms. Brody. I enjoyed it very much and look forward to reading more by her, especially the early ones.

I have been a fan of the Kate Shackleton series and have enjoyed each one. Kate is a smart and admirable sleuth and author Frances Brody's use of meticulously researched historical detail in each book is impressive and adds to the ambiance of the 1920s setting. While a Snapshot of Murder still falls in the historical cozy genre, this series entry takes a decidedly darker turn than some previous titles.

Kate's friend Carine, who runs a photography studio, has lived a tortured life. Her mother disappeared when Carine was a young girl. Her father separates her from her true love and uses emotional blackmail to coerce her into marrying Tobias, who is as domineering and self-centered as Carine's father. Making matters worse, when he dies, her father leaves the photography studio not to Carine but to her sot of a husband.

All of these elements come together during a photography club trip, which Kate has helped to organize, to the village of Haworth--the setting for much of the writings of the Bronte sisters. Tobias is murdered, literally stabbed in the heart. There are multiple suspects, including Carine herself, whom the reader has good reason to believe is emotionally unstable.

It was a little difficult for me to believe the murder took place as described, and, there is a twist at the end that leads the reader to wonder if someone has literally gotten away with murder.

Nevertheless, the book was spellbinding and I found myself reading it all in one day--highly recommended.

Full Disclosure--Net Gallery and the publisher provided me with a digital ARC of this book. This is my honest review.

A good solid mystery set after the first war, the storyline was well written, with the era and characters well drawn to captured period extremely well. The story was a little dark and flowed along at a good pace, the mystery was well told and really kept me turning the pages till the end.
This is a wonderful historical depiction of the era and a good believable mystery

I am new to both Frances Brody and this genre but I think I have fell in love with both, I enjoyed this latest adventure of Brody’s female protagonist Kate. The setting was given it such great detail that I felt immerse in the time. I also loved the added tidbits of current events to give the story more authenticity. 10/10 would recommend.

cosy-mystery, law-enforcement, women-sleuths, friendship, twisty, red-herrings, England, historical-research

I was 65% into the book before I realized that this was part of a series, the author did such a fine job of not letting the reader flounder about. The mystery is set in Leeds and Haworth in 1928. The first murder is not discovered until more than 25 years after it occurred, and the second is known only by the perpetrator, but the third murder is the most apparent, even though the investigation is so convoluted and involves so many reasons and possible justifications that it's very difficult for the reader to solve. Each character is well drawn, especially the villainous ones, and the involvement between them is shown to be important.
I truly enjoyed this book and finished it in one day!
I requested and received a free ebook copy from Piatkus Books via NetGalley. Thank you!

This is the first Frances Brody novel that I've read and overall it was a good well paced read and has all the hallmarks of a good murder mystery - plenty of suspects with a wide range of motives. However it all seemed a bit contrived in places and there were just too many coincidences forcing the cast of suspects together.

I feel that the identity of the murderer was somewhat telegraphed early on in the novel, even before the crime is committed but this strangely didn't detract from the enjoyability of the narrative.

I found the narration a bit strange when it flipped from Kate to the other characters as the style was from a different view but again it was only a minor annoyance and I soon got used to it.

I imagine that if you read the Kate Shackleton novels in order then there are some common themes and character development that I'm missing by reading this completely out of order.

The historical Bronte details are interesting and give the book a nice background into which the characters are thrown. It has given me an urge to read up on the Bronte family and maybe read one of their books (I know shocking isn't it - I've just never got around to reading one)

I've given this 4 out of 5 stars and with a few minor tweaks it could've been a five star read.

If you love Agatha Christie style murder mysteries then this will definitely appeal