Murder at Mallowan Hall is a wonderful cozy mystery from Colleen Cambridge and is the first book in the Phyllida Bright Mystery series. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on the book when I heard it was fictionally set in Agatha Christie’s house and revolved around her house staff.
A fun aside, I was enjoying the book so much that halfway through I went onto Twitter to follow the author and it turns out I already was! Colleen Cambridge also writes under the pen name Colleen Gleason, who wrote the Stoker & Holmes series, which I LOVED. If you think you’d enjoy a mix of Victoria intrigue, steampunk, Sherlock Holmes and vampire lore, then you definitely should go check that series out too!
Title: Murder at Mallowan Hall
Author: Colleen Cambridge
Series: Phyllida Bright #1
First Published: October 26, 2021
Publisher: Kensington Books
Genres: Mystery
Acquired: from the publisher via Netgalley
*** Thank you to the publisher, Kensington Books, for providing me with an e-copy of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an unbiased review. ***
Tucked away among Devon’s rolling green hills, Mallowan Hall combines the best of English tradition with the modern conveniences of 1930. Housekeeper Phyllida Bright, as efficient as she is personable, manages the large household with an iron fist in her very elegant glove. In one respect, however, Mallowan Hall stands far apart from other picturesque country houses…
The manor is home to archaeologist Max Mallowan and his famous wife, Agatha Christie. Phyllida is both loyal to and protective of the crime writer, who is as much friend as employer. An aficionado of detective fiction, Phyllida has yet to find a gentleman in real life half as fascinating as Mrs. Agatha’s Belgian hero, Hercule Poirot. But though accustomed to murder and its methods as frequent topics of conversation, Phyllida is unprepared for the sight of a very real, very dead body on the library floor…
A former Army nurse, Phyllida reacts with practical common sense–and a great deal of curiosity. It soon becomes clear that the victim arrived at Mallowan Hall under false pretenses during a weekend party. Now, Phyllida not only has a houseful of demanding guests on her hands–along with a distracted, anxious staff–but hordes of reporters camping outside. When another dead body is discovered–this time, one of her housemaids–Phyllida decides to follow in M. Poirot’s footsteps to determine which of the Mallowans’ guests is the killer. With help from the village’s handsome physician, Dr. Bhatt, Mr. Dobble, the butler, along with other household staff, Phyllida assembles the clues. Yet, she is all too aware that the killer must still be close at hand and poised to strike again. And only Phyllida’s wits will prevent her own story from coming to an abrupt end…
A fun mix of Agatha Christie and Gosford Park
First off, just like the cast of Gosford Park, be prepared to get to know quite a large number of characters. Aside from Agatha Christie and her husband, Max Mallowan, there are the servants (I counted 15, not including the lead character Phyllida), PLUS the visiting guests (8, not including the victim), PLUS the guests’ servants (4), PLUS the police (2), PLUS various other side characters (victim’s friend, vicar, doctor, pub owner, etc, etc, etc).
Whew! That’s at least 30 named characters (there’s probably more, I kind of lost track and I was taking notes!). It may sound overwhelming but after a while, a lot of the more minor characters kind of faded into the background or you were reminded of what their role was whenever they were mentioned in the story.
While it was tough to get to know any of the characters very well, the ones that you do come to know are obviously the ones that mean the most to the mystery. Most importantly, we get to know Phyllida, who is very capable, efficient and clever, but is a bit judgemental and is hiding secrets of her own (not all of which are revealed by the end of the book). I enjoyed her interactions with the other characters – you could tell a lot about the other characters just by their interactions with Phyllida, especially the rest of the staff.
I particularly enjoyed the setting of the book – Mallowan Hall is wonderfully described and seems like the perfect place to set a murder mystery. It’s a perfect balance of old English ways and new modern conveniences so makes murder solving interesting. I love historical cozy mysteries like this!
We jump right into the murder (the first paragraph!) and then spend the rest of the book getting to know the characters and trying to solve the mystery. There’s a second murder a little later on that adds to the urgency but I found the story never lost its momentum. Books that are the first in a series always have to work extra hard because they need to introduce all the new characters and the location, so I think Murder at Mallowan Hall does a great job of setting up the series, especially considering how many characters there are. It never feels bogged down, but more like a bustling, active household.
I found the pacing just right – I was never bored and the story kept me reading (even though I had to take multiple breaks to jot down notes) and the twists were enough to keep me guessing until the end (got it wrong twice!).
A strong protagonist in Phyllida Bright, with a delightful undercurrent of Agatha Christie
Not surprisingly, Agatha, and her husband, Max, don’t play much of a role in the story or the mystery-solving, remaining in the background. Agatha acts as a friend and sounding-board to Phyllida, but prefers to stay relatively quiet about the whole thing and Max is basically only seen as the host to his guests. The main protagonist is definitely Phyllida and she shines in her role, along with a few developing allies that I’m sure will become stronger sleuthing partners as the series goes on.
As for Phyllida herself, I liked her character but she has some flaws. There’s obviously some hidden secrets in her past that (hopefully) will be revealed in future stories but she is a very capable and efficient women who runs the household staff with a firm but not unkind hand. I enjoyed her dealings with the various staff and guests because it really showed the different class status and personalities of the other characters without having to spend too much time on each of them. I did find Phyllida a tiny bit arrogant (perhaps it’s just misguided confidence) and her low opinion of the local police seems to stem mainly from their looks and the way police are portrayed in many mystery books (bumbling idiots would be putting it kindly), which made her come off as a bit judgemental. But neither negative trait was enough to really put a damper into Phyllida as a character and I liked that she could take care of herself but wasn’t perfect.
And my favourite bit – while there are obvious mentions of Agatha Christie’s books during this story (Poirot is something of a hero to Phyllida), one thing I really enjoyed were the more subtle hints to other Christie books. As a Christie fan, I absolutely loved recognising them. For example, several incidents in Murder at Mallowan Hall cause the character Agatha Christie to muse about writing it into a future story – one that is easily recognised as The Body in the Library. I can only hope this happens throughout the series with different Christie books because it was delightful.
Quote from Murder at Mallowan Hall
