• World All Languages: Head of Zeus
  • Published: 2nd April 2020
  • Agent: James Wills

Mortmain Hall

Martin Edwards

A superb Golden Age mystery packed with twists, from the winner of the Diamond Dagger 2020.

ENGLAND, 1930. Grieving widows are a familiar sight on London’s Necropolis Railway. So when an elegant young woman in a black veil boards the funeral train, nobody guesses her true purpose.

But Rachel Savernake is not one of the mourners. She hopes to save a life – the life of a man who is supposed to be cold in the grave. But then a suspicious death on the railway track spurs her on to investigate a sequence of baffling mysteries: a death in a blazing car; a killing in a seaside bungalow; a tragic drowning in a frozen lake. Rachel believes that the cases are connected – but what possible link can there be?

Rich, ruthless and obsessed with her own dark notions of justice, she will not rest until she has discovered the truth. To find the answers to her questions she joins a house party on the eerie and remote North Yorkshire coast at Mortmain Hall, an estate. Her inquiries are helped – and sometimes hindered – by the impetuous young journalist Jacob Flint and an eccentric female criminologist with a dangerous fascination with perfect crimes…

Mortmain Hall is at once a gripping thriller and a classic whodunit puzzle: a Golden Age Gothic mystery, perfect for fans of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers.

“The multi-award-winning Edwards launched a distinctly sparky female detective, Rachel Savernake, daughter of an Old Bailey judge, in his last book and here she reappears in even more spectacular form ... This is an old-fashioned mystery with a string of very modern twists, making Ms Savernake a Miss Marple for the 21st century.”
Daily Mail
“Martin Edwards is a guru of the interwar Golden Age of crime novels, and his work pays homage to the intricate puppetry and byzantine plotting popular in the period.”
The Times
“Any novel opening in 1930's England on the London Necropolis Company's private station has got to be a winner, especially in the hands of Martin Edwards, connoisseur extraordinaire of the Golden Age of crime fiction.”
Shots Magazine
“A classic whodunnit with a dark gothic twist ... An absorbing and intricately plotted golden age murder mystery.”
CultureFly
“Edwards maintains a cracking pace and only the smartest readers will anticipate the denouement. As elegant period escapism, it ticks all the boxes.”
Mail on Sunday
“Edwards has created some marvellous characters in these books which carry a real flavour of the Golden Age of crime fiction. There's even the traditional list of clues at the end so puzzled readers can see how many they missed.”
Morning Star

Other books by Martin Edwards