Murder on the White Cliffs - A Posie Parker Mystery, Book 8

I really need to pay more attention, because it has apparently been more than a year and a half since I read my last Posie Parker mystery novel, and I am already way behind on this series - I mean, here I am just now reading book eight, and and according to Amazon, there are sixteen published books in the series!  Which means, I am only half-way through the series.  Egads!  But that's okay, because it seems a number of other series I read have either already ended, or are coming to an end, so at least this gives me some comfort in knowing I still have eight more books to go with this one (and how know how many more L.B. Hathaway will write while I'm trying to get those eight read?!).  This book is considerably thicker than the seven prior books, but the larger page count was definitely needed for Hathaway to tell this story.

 

Murder on the White Cliffs provide us with a prologue to murder - a young woman heading off to a clandestine meeting on a dark, stormy night, high atop the cliffs overlooking the treacherous rocks and ocean below.  A mysterious man meets her, and they fight, the man accusing her of having written to Posie Parker for help.  Help with what?  The next thing you know. the young woman is pushed, sent flying over the edge of the cliff, and the last thing she hears is someone crying out her name ... Elsie .. or was that Elise?  With that cryptic crime, Hathaway then switches to Bloomsbury, London, where Richard Lovelace has been left getting his fiance's top-floor flat ready for him and his two daughters to move it.  Yes, the marriage of Posie Parker and Richard Lovelace is still on, but the question is - does Posie have cold feet?

 

Just when they are preparing to wed, move in together, and share their lives, Posie heads off to St. Margaret's Bay to look into the mysterious circumstances surrounding Elise Moncrieff's death.  It may at first glance appear to have been an accident, Posie's gut tells her otherwise.  Why else would the woman have written to her months before, asking for her help?  She had not gone to help her, and now the woman was dead.  For Posie, something did not add up.  The fact that St. Margaret's Bay is also the location of Maypole Manor, the site of another murder three years prior that Posie and Richard had solved ... the site where Posie first met the mysterious secret agent, Max ... a man she had been strangely attracted to ... a man who she had learned died in service of his country ... a man who, oddly enough, turns out looks nearly identical to the now deceased Elsie Moncrieff!  Yes, the stage is set for a superbly written mystery that connects the present to the past, interweaving a story of spies, secret love, deceit, murder, and hidden identities (as well as a scheming little maid who manages to learn quite a bit about everyone at White Shaw - perhaps too much, since she winds up dead before the end of this tale!). Not everyone in this story is who they say they are, and the more you read of it, the more you realize why Hathaway needed nearly 400 pages to write the story.

 

The mystery centers around the fashion design house known as White Shaw, and its owners - the American heiress, Petronella Douglas, and her Scottish husband, Anthony Stone.  The lavish parties thrown, the high-profile guests who attend, the alcohol and drugs that flow freely at those parties, and the scientist who goes missing at one of those parties are all a part of the mix, as Posie slowly discovers as she digs deeper and deeper into the death of Elsie Moncrieff - a woman who, as it turns out, has no past.  In fact, she does not seem to exist at all.  So, who was she?  Why did she reach out to Posie?  What involvement did she have with Douglas & Stone fashion house?  How did she create her own network of spies within the house without anyone knowing?  When did she decide it was time to leave?  And, most important of all - what information did she discover that led her to her not only receiving a letter of termination from Petronella Douglas, but ultimately led to her death?  The housekeeper ... the cook ... the chauffeur ... the handyman ... the escort ... an entire crew of people, each hiding secrets regarding Elsie and the day her body was found.  Plus, Posie has a very unexpected visitor in her hotel room ... a ghost from the past who is trying to give her the clues she needs to solve this mystery before she becomes the next victim, as there are forces at work far beyond the fashion world.  Spies, traitors, and secret agents play a huge part of it, and someone Posie thought she could trust turns out to be the worst villain of them all!

 

Hathaway does integrate Guy Fawkes Night into the story, and as I read mention of this celebration, I had to wonder where I had heard of this before?  Had a prior Posie Parker story mentioned it?  Well, looking back, it seems those precocious pre-teen sleuths, Wells & Wong, happened to have a mystery that involved the same celebration (Jolly Foul Play).  It seems those night time bonfires are the perfect place for a murder to happen!  And for those who don't know (which included me, until I looked it up), Guy Fawkes Nigh, also referred to as "Bonfire Night," is an annual event in November that commemorates the failure of Guy Fawkes plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament and kill King James I.  

Something else that caught my attention in this story are the references to Posie's prior boyfriend, the adventurous Alaric Boynton-Dale (who died in a previous book).  While I had not thought about the name before, when I was reading this story, it suddenly struck me as funny how similar Alaric's name is to the author of the Sue Barton and Carol Page series for young adults - Helen Dore Boylston.  It made me wonder if Hathaway was giving just a minor nod to that author; perhaps Hathaway even read some of Boylston's books growing up.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed the mystery, and as Posie begins to put the pieces together, if the reader has paid close attention throughout the story, one will be able to figure out who is who and what really happened that fateful night. It is a well-plotted tale of murder and intrigue, and it not only puts to rest a part of Posie's past, the final chapter sets the stage for Posie and Richard's wedding, with a huge surprise thrown in to boot!

 

RATING:  10  blue, fake-silk headscarves out of 10 for a post-war, spy-filled murder mystery spattered with fashion and bonfires!