Murder at the Queen's Old Castle by
Cora Harrison is number six of
the Reverend Mother mysteries set in Cork, Ireland around the 1920s. The
domineering family patriarch is murdered, leaving his wife, two daughters, and
younger son, who all worked in the family business, as suspects, along with the
employees and apprentices. When the eldest son, a major in the British Army, inherits
the business, he also a suspect. Reverend Mother, along with Dr. Scher and
Inspector Patrick Cashman, unravel this mystery.
The setting: Central to the story is
the Queen’s Old Castle, a distinctive building with a long history in Cork. At
the time of the novel, it was a department
store with high ceilings, a clear glass
roof, and columns with gaslights. One oddity was a system to send payments to an
office high above the sales floor where the patriarch collected the money, made
change, and issued receipts.
The writing: The writing tended to
repetition. One character would do something and in the next page, a second character would observe that character, leaving the reader with
duplicate descriptions. The result was a slow-moving book.
Historical anomaly: The book publicity
places the story in the 1920s, however Cork, in the southwest of Ireland, would
have become independent of the UK 6 December 1921. The novel reads as if this
never happened.
My favorite character: Eileen was a
writer, reporter, and entrepreneur. She also witnessed the murder. She wrote
stories about the murder to sell to the newspapers. She convinced a fancy story
to use advertising pamphlets, seemingly an
innovation and a new business for her friend the printer. She
investigated the murder. Sadly, halfway through the book, she disappeared.
If you’re looking for a historical cozy
mystery with a plethora of suspects and an interesting setting, this could be a
book to consider.
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