“Betrayal at Ravenswick” - Kelly Oliver

(Fiona Figg book 1)

👒 tl;dr: BAR is a cozy (if convoluted) mystery featuring a likable heroine. There were a number of  plot holes, and a high level of suspension of disbelief was required. In that way, BAR had a touch of the Sherringford Holmes vibes, though not in a tidy mystery as that Charlotte Holmes novel. BAR was a fun if not totally satisfying read, but I’m not sure if I’ll pick up the next book in the series.

👒 I noticed a lot of similarities to a novel that I love: “The Mysterious Affair at Styles”. The OCD tendencies of one of the characters is very Poirotesque.

👒 Fiona is a woman done wrong so we easily root for her as she pulls her life together in the shadow of a philandering ex-husband and the Great War. She finds herself suddenly promoted from secretary in the War Office to a secret agent embedded at Ravenswick Abbey shadowing a suspected spy by the name of Frederick Fredericks (hello, alliterative names). It’s a bit of a mystery how Fiona engages in evidence-tampering at the scene of a crime, and gets away with it. Also, I’m not sure how her shoddy cover as a toxicologist isn’t smashed during the inquest where she is called to testify. These are among the several flights of fancy that emerge as the novel progresses.

👒 The end of BAR is abrupt. When you read the title of book 2 in the series, you realize that it’s a continuation of this novel. Even so, it was disappointing to finish the book with the important questions still unanswered. I wasn’t prepared for that.

👒 NB this audiobook was a bit mystifying with the sheer number of mispronunciations littered throughout the narration. Accounting for differences between British and American English, and I even did follow-up and check pronunciations, there were many errors that were repeated with some frequency (Dionysus, gabardine, to name a few).