Absolutely wonderful and fun cozy mystery! I enjoyed the characters and setting. The narration was perfect. A must read for historical fiction fans!

Mabel Canning, wishing to be an independent woman in London, begins working for the Useful Women’s Agency. Things start off great until she opens a client’s, Rosalind Despard’s, door and discovers a dead body. Mabel can’t help herself and soon finds that she is fully immersed in solving this murder case. As she unfolds clues as to why the dead man was connected to Rosalinds missing husband, she joins forces with Rosalind’s brother Park Winstone. Park just happens to be a former detective. The two set out on a hunt that proves to be dangerous. Can Rosalind and Park outsmart a killer who will stop at nothing to keep them quiet? This cozy mystery set in London, 1921 will keep you turning pages and not want to put the story down or pressing pause on the audiobook.

Naomi Frederick is an accomplished stage actress who has narrated several audiobooks. Naomi’s ability to bring Mabel and all the other characters to life enhances the listening experience. This book was made even better with a fantastic production. I would highly recommend this audiobook to others.

This was a cute, little, historical fiction mystery. It's clearly the start of a new series. I found it enjoyable. It was a little long for my taste. I don't think it needed to be drawn out to over 300 pages, but overall, it was a nice little story with likeable characters. I would recommend it to anyone that likes murder mysteries without gore. Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

Thank you to the publisher , author and netgalley who gave me the opportunity to listen and review .

It was a wonderful cozy mystery story . Loved the timeline of the story and a women trying to be an independent women . We connect instantly with the main character Mabel Canning who works for the Useful Women's Agency doing small jobs for the local women . She gets involved in a missing person and murder investigations and realising the extent of her talent and becomes an independent private eye.

Loved the narration by Naomi Frederick. Was perfect for the timeline of the story.

I listened to the audiobook of this fun murder mystery. You instantly connect with the main character, Mabel. You are right there with her as she finds herself caught up in the intrigue and questions surrounding the death of a solider who falls dead at her feet. The story itself flowed quickly and never left me bored. I think the story fit well with the time period and how the mystery was solved with what resources they had at that time. Some of the characters did not help the storyline and could have been eliminated but overall, an enjoyable cozy murder mystery.

Thanks to NetGalley and Bookouture for an advanced audiobook exchange for an honest review.

4 stars

Cute cozy murder mystery set in early 1921 London. Mabel Canning works for the Useful Women's Agency doing a little bit of everything for the local gentlewomen. She gets involved in a missing person and murder investigations.

I enjoyed Naomi Frederick's narration.

4.5 stars rounded up:

A Body On The Doorstep" starts the "London Labies' Murder Club" series written by Marty Wingate. The story follows a woman in London in 1921, Mabel Canning, through her time working for the Useful Women's Agency. Her first assignment required her to assist Rosalind Despard during the wake of her missing husband, Guy Despard. At the wake, an unidentified dead man falls at the feet of Mabel after she answers the door, welding a letter for Rosaline from her husband. Mabel quickly becomes entangled in the mystery behind the disappearance of Guy Despard and the identity of the man on the Despard's doorstep.

Through the book, she meets quite a few people via her work at the Useful Women Agency. It was a bit challenging to keep up with all the characters. At times I would confuse one character for another. Some of the characters weren't related to this particular mystery of the first book. However, I still enjoyed reading about her other assignments from the Useful Women Agency, which added some fun to the seriousness of the murder mystery.

Overall, I enjoyed this audiobook. The narrator did a great job imitating the characters, making it easy to follow who was talking. I look forward to the next book in the series, as the author did an excellent job setting the scene with the relationships between characters, and events taking place in 1921 London. The amount of detail Wingate includes is enough to where the book doesn't drag but paints a vision in your mind. The book is well-written, and a fun read.

I'm always up for trying a new cozy mystery series and I do really enjoy historical cozy mysteries. A Body on the Doorstep is the first book in Mary Wingate's London Ladies' Murder Club series.

I really liked the main character Mabel Canning. She reminded me a little of Jacqueline W.inspear's Maisie Dobbs. While Mabel isn't a trained investigator, she has a keen mind and good observational skills - both important attributes for solving murder. I listened to the audiobook read by Naomi Frederick. At first I thought prefers she also narrated the Maisie Dobbs series and that was why I kept picture Maisie. But it is a different narrator. I thought Frederick did a great job with the audiobook.

Since I read a lot of cozy mysteries, it is a high bar for a series to be original. While I don't mind some overlap in series, I do like there to be something unique about a series. Mabel works for the Useful Women's Agency which is a sort of a Jill of all trades type job - anything from running errands (like picking up dry cleaning) to answering correspondence to helping hang pictures to taking escorting a child to the train station. And in Mabel's case it also includes solving a murder. Instead of being employed by one family, the reader is exposed to a wide swath of London society.

I'm not sure if this will carry over into future books, but in this book, we also get to see a bit of the entertainment scene of the 1920s. It is not something that has really been showcased in the other 1920s set English mystery series I read.

I already have book 2 on my Kindle and very much looking forward to what is next for Mabel as she formerly takes on investigative cases and heads up an investigative team at the Useful Women's Agency.

My review will be published at Girl Who Reads on Tuesday - https://www.girl-who-reads.com/2024/01/a-body-on-doorstep-by-marty-wingate.html

Good mystery with unexpected twist, well described characters & great narration.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the ARC.

I like the concept of this series, particularly that it is different from the usual high society lady detective series which I like but are starting to feel overdone. I really enjoyed Mabel and found the story interesting. I didn't like it as much as other series like it but will most likely read a book 2.

2023 was the year I stumbled across the subgenre of "cozy murder mystery" (oh the irony!) and I fell in love! I think it scratches the itch to deduce and logic my way through a twisty mystery, without all the grisly details of who mutilated what and how. Since this newfound discovery, I've been looking for books that fit this bill, so imagine my delightful surprise when I found "A Body On The Doorstep" by Marty Wingate which IS the epitome of a cozy murder mystery (AND Book 1 in a planned series?! YES PLEASE.)

A Body On The Doorstep is (wom)manned by our protagonist Mabel Canning who is looking to make a way for herself in 1920s London. Her backstory of growing up sheltered in an English small town gives her a dimension that comes across as slightly naive, yet not completely clueless. She determines that no matter what, she will find a way to fully become an independent lady. Upon arriving in London she joins the "Useful Women's Agency" run by the no-nonsense Mrs. Lillian Kerr. Think of it like The Babysitter's Club, but instead the Useful Women's Agency sends out gentlewomen to help with with any task that you should find yourself in need of help with - hanging a picture, dropping off dry cleaning, mending clothes, and the like.

After joining the agency, Mabel gets dispatched to a very unusual first job to assist Rosalind Despard who is hosting a wake at her house. And this is no ordinary wake - it's for her husband Guy who mysteriously disappeared 7 years ago and is now officially declared dead. The services come to an abrupt end when Mabel answers the door and a dead body falls on the doorstep. But the strange thing is, no one at this event can identify who this is - and the only clue is a letter in his pocket insinuating a connection between the dead body and Guy. This begins Mabel's investigation into what REALLY happened to Guy Despard.

The wake at Rosalind's certainly has a cast of characters up that draw up considerable suspicion. There's Thomas Hardcastle, Guy's business lawyer, who seems to live a much more lavish life than his salary would allow. Guy's secretary, Gabrielle Roche, who was seen whispering at the party to a group of men and may have ties to Irish independence organizations. There's Park Winston, Rosalind's brother who was originally a member of Scotland Yard and worked his brother-in-law's case before he was suspiciously removed and discharged from the force. Also of note is Cyril Godfrey, Rosalind's past stage partner who has an alibi the night of Guy's disappearance, but happened to be missing the wake to perform in a show when the body arrived on the doorstep. Could curmudgeon-y Bridget, the caretaker of the Depsard estate be capable of pulling off Guy's disappearance? There is Rosalind herself, who was investigated heavily 7 years ago, and while officially cleared by police, still has rumors and whispers surrounding her all these years later. And who is this mysterious Michael Shaugnessy that everyone keeps alluding to?

Overall I really enjoyed listening to this book! I thought it fit the bill of cozy murder mystery very well! Some of my favorite parts were the chapters on the jobs Mabel was doing for the Useful Women's Agency. I do feel like the book got off to a strong start by beginning at the wake, but lost a bit of steam going back and explaining Mabel's backstory. There was also a section in the middle that seemed to lag with no new clues being introduced and it felt a bit too circular going around and around discussing what the reader already knew. I also figured out the red herring much sooner than I would have liked. I would definitely be interested in reading book 2 in the series to see what sort of hijinxs Mabel and her friends continue to get into, because I feel like these characters were so lovable!

I want to thank NetGalley and Bookouture Audio for an ARC audiobook copy of A Body On The Doorstep by Marty Wingate in exchange for a review of my own opinions and thoughts.

3.75

It took me a little while to get going with this book. It was either A) I am over critical due to loving several mysteries series of this era, B) I was not in the best of environments trying to listen to this amongst family over Christmas vacation, or C) it is indeed a little tricky to catch onto at the beginning. Whatever the reason, I was in anguish thinking about the review where I crushed the soul of the poor author of this first book.

Little did I know that it would turn around into a very interesting and unique mystery with some likable characters and that Marty Wingate, though perhaps not yet an author of historical mysteries, is a prolific author of the cozy, present-day American variety. I wouldn’t go so far as to liken her Mabel Canning to Maisie Dobbs or the like or even Her Royal Spyness, but it reminds me of several others (High Society’s Olive or a perhaps novella mystery series Ginger Gold or Posie Parker, etc.) but with some new twists for the era.

This is the first of the series and the next will begin with a bit of a departure given the ending events of the first mystery. Surprisingly, I see that number two of the series is also coming out on the same day in January 2024, with the third later this spring. Generally, you see this with offers of novella mysteries, not full-length books. Perhaps she really got into these stories during the pandemic and had time to kill. Either way, we win. I look forward to seeing what Mabel Canning is up to next.

Narrator Naomi Frederick did a great job conveying the story.

I received a free copy of this audiobook from NetGalley in exchange for providing an unbiased review.

Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest rating and review.

4/5

This was a cute little cozy mystery! I enjoyed the time period this story took place, and I smiled to myself every time the “Useful Women’s Agency” was mentioned (it’s just the perfect blend of silly yet plausible for the time period). The women characters, especially, were very well-written!

I was fairly certain I had the murderer pegged extremely early on, which I usually hate in a mystery, but knowing “whodunit” did not really detract from this mystery. I had no idea as to the “whydunit” or any of the other details and how/if any of the other characters were connected, so it was fun to see how that all played out.

Thanks Netgalley for the free ARC. I got this one on audiobook and I absolutely loved it. The narrator was great, the story was fun, and I really enjoyed all of the characters, I love a cozy mystery audiobook and will definitely be on the lookout for the next one in the series!

A sweet, cozy mystery with a lovely and engaging main character. In the 1920’s, Mabel went to London to work with the Useful Women’s Agency. She happens upon a mystery on her first day of the job, and the story spins from there. There’s lots of wonderful English touches and colorful characters. It made for an enjoyable audiobook.

A lovely cozy that takes place in the 1920s. I enjoyed the concept of the Useful Women Agency. The main character was someone I could root for, she had a desire to be independent and useful. The secondary characters were all charming and the ending and the whodunnit were fulfilling.

I recommend listening to this one, I thought the narrator did a great job!

Mabel Canning is a modern woman in 1921. She wants to be independent and heads to London where she signs on with The Useful Women agency. Mabel realises that in order to be top of the list when a job comes in, she needs to be at the forefront of Miss Kerr’s mind. And so she arrives at the agency every morning and sits right opposite Miss Kerr’s desk - genius!

I liked Mabel instantly. She can read a room and adapts her behaviour accordingly. When a body is dumped on the doorstep at her first agency job, this is a skill that comes in mighty handy as Mabel has to deal with her client, the police and everyone else who decides to stick their nose in!

I am looking forward to more in this cozy crime series.

4 ⭐️ Thanks to Netgalley, Marty Wingate and Bookouture, for an ARC in return for an honest review.

I listened to A Body on the Doorstep and I can’t wait for the next book in the series. This book is set in London early 1920’s, all Mable wants is to be an independent woman and utilizing her skills at Useful Women’s Agency. Her first job involves a murder at the homeowners door step. Mable feels as if she needs to help Rosalind and find out who the man that is dead on her doorstep on top of her other odd jobs working at the agency.
I know Mable wants to remain independent but I couldn’t help but ship over Parker and Mable.. I highly recommend this book and thank you Netgalley for letting me listen to the book in exchange for my honest review

A Body on the Doorstep is the first book in the London Ladies' Murder Club series. Mabel Canning is new to London. She is determined to make it work as a stand out employee of the Useful Women's Agency. During a placement at widow Rosalind Despaired's home, Mabel discovers the body of a soldier on the doorstop. Drawn into the investigation Mable makes it her mission to discover the identity of the unknown soldier and solve the murder.

I had so much fun with this book! I'm really loving historical mystery books right now and this really hit the spot. Mabel is a great main character. She is smart and determined. I enjoyed the setting of the Useful Women's Agency. It was nice to see her getting to go out on various jobs while trying to solve the mystery. I very much look forward to the next installment of this series.

The audiobook narrator Naomi Frederic was fantastic.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture Audio for the ACL in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to listen to this audiobook in exchange for my honest review.

I loved this mystery set in London in 1921. The main character is one that you love instantly, and want to continue rooting for the whole story. Mabel Canning has moved away from home in order to be a truly independent woman. Not so easy in the 1920’s!

She takes a job being a Useful Women and that entire dynamic I found enjoyable. the lists of tasks she completed them was a fun thread throughout the storyline without being overdone. On her very first job, it was a bit too exciting, when a dead body shows up on the doorstep. Mabel learns that she not only wants to be independent, but she wants to solve the mystery. She makes friends and enemies along the way, but every page turn/audio clip is fun, event packed and overall enjoyable.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️