The Underwood Mysteries Series by Suzanne Downes (#1-6)
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Overview: Suzanne Downes … married to David (second marriage for both of us) and we are rapidly approaching our thirtieth anniversary, and we are happier than we have ever been and enjoying spending time together now that I have given up work to write full time. I have three children, a daughter and son from my first marriage and a daughter with David. I have a grandson and two tortoises. Besides writing, I love reading, sunbathing and very old movies – and I mean really old! 1930’s and 40’s – even though they were made before I was born (I’m not quite that old!) Two of my children now live in Australia, so I now enjoy travelling to the Antipodes, whereas before I loved travelling to places like Rome!
Genre: Mystery
#1. A Noble Pair of Brothers: When C. H. Underwood arrives in the village of Bracken Tor in the spring of 1820, he intends only to visit his brother, the vicar, and take a long rest from his work as a Classics tutor at Cambridge University.
However, almost as soon as he arrives he finds himself intrigued by an unsolved murder, committed the year before.
The headless corpse of a young woman was found in woods belonging to the local landowner and Magistrate, Sir Henry Wynter.
Underwood finds the notion that the body lies in a grave marked “Unknown” to be abhorrent. He decides to use his free time to discover the identity of the victim – and if possible bring her killer to justice.
His brother begs him to proceed with caution, as the murder had roused feelings of a controversial nature amongst the villagers.
Before long he has uncovered not only the girl’s final movements before her death, but also the possibility of two other murders having taken place in Bracken Tor.
His task is not made any less complicated by his developing relationship with Charlotte, one of Sir Henry’s daughters, and by the myriad characters he comes across in his investigation.
The theory that the girl had been killed as some sort of barbaric ritual is only one of his difficulties, and when a young man arrives in the midst of a cricket match, claiming to be the victim’s husband, the whole village becomes privy to the fact that Underwood is attempting to solve the mystery.
When the newcomer is shot through the heart whilst in Underwood’s company, he finds himself not only universally reviled for his interference, but also accused of murder himself.
It takes all his ingenuity to extricate himself from the chaos he has caused, but he always has Verity Chapell, governess to the Wynter girls, to help him in his quest to find the murderer.
#2. Food For The Gallows: The second Underwood mystery finds the self-appointed detective back in the Pennines, now a married man.
His brother Gil has been made vicar of a Spa town called Hanbury and it is here where Underwood and his wife Verity arrive for a visit.
Within days they are embroiled in another murder mystery when Josephine Dunstable dies in the Spa Pump-rooms, apparently poisoned by a cup of the supposedly healing waters. Since she is seventy and her new husband just barely twenty-seven, immediate suspicion falls upon the groom, and only Underwood believes the young man’s protestations of innocence.
Hanbury is full of interesting characters and during the course of his investigations, Underwood finds himself befriending Toby Hambleton, a black ex-puglilist, Major Jeremy James Thornycroft, a Waterloo veteran without legs, Lady Hartley-Wells, a redoubtable widow and her foppish nephew Vivian Pepper.
Will Underwood find the true killer of Josephine Dunstable or will her young husband Oliver become ‘food for the gallows’?
#3. Behind The Horseman: A serial killer is on the loose in Hanbury and Underwood is in the unenviable position of knowing that it is his own past detective adventures that have provoked the killing spree. Someone is out to revenge themselves on him by killing those who mean something to him.
To add to his burden, his wife Verity is suffering a difficult pregnancy and is confined to bed for the duration. His brother Gil is risking his career by falling in love with a Roman Catholic and his old tutor has inflicted himself on the family for a long visit.
As if he didn’t have enough to contend with a vivacious young woman called Lady Cara Lovell, daughter of an Earl, has decided to pass the time by indulging in a flirtation with Underwood; he is totally clueless but the rest of Hanbury is scandalised. When they are both abducted and held prisoner in the limestone caves above the town, it is assumed they have eloped leaving poor Verity about to give birth and unaware that she has been abandoned.
Facing his most difficult challenge yet, Underwood has to save Lady Cara, bring the murderer to justice and get back to his wife before she hears the rumours of his infidelity, but only a fool would wander the labyrinthine caves without a guide.
Will Underwood survive to see his first child born safely?
#4. An Aria Writ In Blood: When the Reverend Gilbert Underwood announces his intention to marry Lady Cara Lovell, no one is more surprised than his brother, C. H. – affectionately known as Chuffy. And little does anyone imagine that this happy event is to end with the particularly gory and unpleasant death of the bride’s favourite uncle.
The story, set in the 1820’s, moves from the glitter of a London wedding to Earl Lovell’s Brighton villa where behind the façade of late Regency society there lies a story of betrayal, mistrust, violence and horror.
Underwood finds himself charged with the delicate task of solving this mysterious event without incurring any further scandal than the controversial Lord Peter had already roused prior to his demise.
Bad enough that the man should have married an Italian opera singer whose constant companion is a dwarf manservant, but for that woman to be so lovely, young and flirtatious that she catches the eye of every man who crosses her path! Gossip is already flying when Lord Peter is found in a locked room with his throat slashed and only his unconscious wife for company.
At first it is obvious that Lord Peter has beaten his wife into insensibility then cut his own throat in a fit of remorse, but as Underwood begins his investigation, things cease to add up to so simple an explanation. If Peter took his own life, then where is the weapon he used? Why does Lady Luisa, the merry widow, attempt to take her own life by drowning when the questions begin to delve too deeply into the mystery? Her bloodstained dress prove that she could not have been the killer, so whom is she shielding – and how did the murderer escape from a securely locked room?
John Grantley, the Constable of Brighton, is himself smitten by the lovely, desirable songstress, but he knows she holds the key to her husband’s death and he is forced by circumstance to deny his interest in her – especially when it becomes obvious she is carrying her late husband’s child.
It will take all Underwood’s ingenuity to solve the mystery – but solve it he must, or have Lady Cara’s family’s name dragged through the mud, something which, for his brother’s sake, he cannot allow.
#5. Yield Not To Misfortune: When Cadmus H Underwood is asked to look into the case of Lydia Woodforde, he knows from the outset that it is not going to be an easy mystery to solve.
The young lady in question was kidnapped by her father at the age of five and kept from her grieving mother for twenty years.
Now she has returned, conveniently just as she is due to inherit a vast fortune left by her grandfather. Mrs Woodforde is happy to welcome home the prodigal with open arms, but she is cautioned by her friend Lady Hartley-Wells, who points out that they have no proof that Lydia is who she says she is, or that her father is now dead as she claims.
Underwood is given the task of investigating both Lydia and her supposedly deceased father and their life in Barbados from whence the young woman has just arrived, bringing her black slave Sabrina with her, scandalizing Hanbury society, who are suddenly made aware that though slavery has been outlawed in England, it still holds sway in the Colonies.
In the meantime Underwood has also been asked by the crippled Waterloo veteran Jeremy James Thornycroft, to help the man who saved his life. Rutherford Petch has been found guilty of stealing a valuable diamond necklace from his Great Aunt Jemima and has been transported to Australia for seven years. Thornycroft is utterly convinced that the man who saved him from certain death on the battlefield could not possibly sink so low as to steal from his own family.
Underwood agrees to take both cases, but he cannot know that the greed of three men is to bring him to the brink of death and even those who are closest to him most face the loss of their beloved Cadmus.
#6. A Place For Repentance: Verity Underwood is concerned that her husband is not recovering well from his recent poisoning ordeal so she enlists the help of his brother, Gil, in finding them somewhere peaceful for him to recuperate. The holiday, however, proves to be less relaxing than planned, for Dacorum-in-the-Marsh is not far from West Wimpleford, where Underwood had a brush with death at the hands of a highwayman.
Underwood and Verity also renew acquaintance with some people from their recent past: Will Jebson, the apothecary and his ambitious wife Martha, Rutherford Petch and his sister Cressida. They also rescue an abandoned and penniless French émigré, Violette.
Back in Hanbury, arrangements are underway to celebrate the birthday of their friend Major Thornycroft and many of his old comrades descend on the town, intent on carousing. When ill feeling between two of the ex-soldiers leads to a fatal duel, something tells Underwood that all is not what it seems. Then another of the men dies in similar circumstances and Underwood is proved right. Panic ensues.
Are all Waterloo veterans under a death sentence? Suddenly there is an outpouring of xenophobia towards Violette – for who else could hate those who fought at Waterloo more than a native of France?
Can Underwood find the killer before any more military blood is shed?
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