“A Baffling Mystery at the Midsummer Ball” - T. E. Kinsey
🎵 This was my first T. E. Kinsey novel but as you can see from my monthly recaps, it wasn’t my last! Kinsey writes excellent cozy mysteries that check off all the boxes - plenty of historical detail, an assortment of interesting characters, and of course, an intriguing mystery.
🎵 The Dizzy Heights are a popular jazz band among the Bright Young Things. They are a 10-person ensemble plus a manager and the wife of one of the musicians. Thus, there is a rather bewildering amount of names and nicknames to keep sorted in the first few pages, and that’s before we meet the Bilverton clan.
🎵 The Dizzies arrive at Bilverton Hall to play the Midsummer Ball. Bandmates Skins and Dunn, and Dunn’s wife Ellie, soon find themselves investigating the peculiar circumstances surrounding a death occurring at Bilverton Hall while both family and band are stranded. ABFFB gives us a classic mystery set up: during a dark, and stormy morning, a much-reviled member of the Bilverton family, is found dead inside the study which is locked from the inside.
🎵 Kinsey’s dialogues sound natural, and not at all overdone. They are quite charming and sound true to how people might have spoken in the 1920s. It was fun to listen to this one as an audiobook.
🎵 I enjoyed Skins’ progressive views (for the 1920s) regarding British imperialism, its negative impacts on colonial subjects of color, and the discrimination faced by non-whites - even upstanding former British military like the Dizzy’s own Benny. Skins provides a foil of stuffy eldest Bilverton sibling Gordon, whose views are decidedly imperialist. Meanwhile, the youngest Bilverton - Howard - gives decidedly Bertie Woosteresque vibes.
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