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Transcript

Welcome to Mystery Books podcast. I’m USA Today bestselling mystery author Sara Rosett. I’m also a bookworm who specializes in the mystery genre. I love sharing my favorite mystery discoveries, from classic golden age novels to contemporary cozies. This episode is all about Murder at Mallowan Hall by Colleen Cambridge.

Murder at Mallowan Hall was published in 2021, and it’s book one in the Phyllida Bright series. I hope I’m saying that correctly.

Blurb

Here’s the blurb: As head of household for none other than Agatha Christie, Phyllida Bright finds her position includes polishing silver, serving luncheons, and drawing inspiration from the crime author’s fictional detectives. When mysterious deaths at Mallowan Hall baffled her famous employer.

Here’s the first line. Phyllida Bright had seen her share of bodies during the Great War, so when she discovered the dead man sprawled on the floor, it didn’t even occur to her to scream.

This book is an interesting mash up of real life and fiction. I don’t usually enjoy historical figures as sleuths. I find it very hard to suspend my disbelief, but I did enjoy this book and I think it was because Christie has a minor role in this and she’s not the main character. I find it difficult to believe that some of these people that are the main characters in these fictional stories or fictionalized stories with main characters who were historical people, I find it hard to believe that they were sleuths and it’s just my own, something that I just have a hard time getting over. So I tend not to read these or if I try them, I have a hard time enjoying them. But this book I really enjoyed and I think it was because Agatha Christie had a minor role and the main character is her housekeeper.

Now she becomes involved in an investigation when a visitor to Mallowan Hall, which is not a real location. This is one of the places where it’s a mash up of real life and fiction. Mallowan was the last name of Agatha Christie’s second husband and there is no Mallowan Hall in real life. But this book is set in a place that Christie lived, Devon. She really did live in Devon, but not at Mallowan Hall. So see, it’s kind of a fiction and factor kind of interwoven together. So at this fictional estate, a house party is going on and one of the guests is murdered, who is a reporter.

Just a couple of little notes about the main character Phyllida. She is a battlefield nurse, turned housekeeper, turned sleuth, actually. And in many ways she is a female Poirot, but she likes his order and method. And that makes complete sense for a housekeeper because she would have to have an orderly way of doing things and have to have a good system in place to run a household on this scale.

Now, after this death happens and it’s clear that it’s murder. Agatha Christie, of course, would seem to be a perfect sleuth for this. But I thought it was funny as a writer reading this, that she is so busy with her work and her writing that she really doesn’t have time to investigate. And I thought it was just hilarious because writers are always like, “Oh, my goodness, I’m so busy, I don’t have time to do other things.” So I thought that was kind of a little inside joke in a way, and I enjoyed that part of it.

So because it’s upsetting the household, Phyllida takes control of the situation, and she’s going to solve this problem so that the household will run smoothly. And as a housekeeper, she has access to the servants and also to what’s going on in the upstairs world. She is good friends with Mrs. Christie, and although most of the world doesn’t know that they do have a close relationship because it’s something that’s more private.

Themes and Tropes

Okay, let’s talk about themes. One of the themes of Murder at Mallowan Hall, I would say, is a square peg in a round hall, things that don’t quite fit. Phyllida is not quite your typical housekeeper. She hasn’t come up through the ranks of being a servant to achieve this position. She has a different background being a nurse. And it’s clear from some of the dialogue between her and Agatha Christie that they are friends. There’s some rivalries and some tension in the servants’ hall because she doesn’t fit in. She’s not quite what they would expect for a housekeeper.

And that leads into another theme power struggle. That’s going on in this. There’s some domestic issues with Mr. Dobble. I love that name. He’s the Butler and he’s in charge of the male servants. And so there’s a little bit of a power struggle going on between Mr. Dobble and Phyllida. Not only is he dealing with this issue that she’s not quite what he and the other servants would expect to be in this position, but he has some issues with her as a single woman. And she’s very competent at what she does, and she’s acknowledged to be competent by everyone else in the household, but he doesn’t like that she does her job so well. Basically, is the issue.

Another theme in this is identity. People are not who they claim to be. And so that applies to Phyllida all the way down to the suspects, which, of course, is perfect for a murder mystery because things are often not as they seem. And we don’t find out much about Phyllida’s background. I think that’s something that we’ll find out in future books.

Okay. Let’s talk a little bit about Tropes. In Murder at Mallowan Hall, we have the country house party trope. That’s one of my favorites. It’s well known, and you can find it in many books from the 1920s and 30s. Many classic mysteries have the country house party where you have a gathering of suspects and someone dies, and then the crime has to have been committed by somebody who is in the house party. This is the perfect set up for that.

You also have this trope of the contrast of the upstairs and downstairs world, and that you see a lot of that through Phyllida’s eyes, and you see what the servants knew as well as how they interact with the people who are there for the house party. And most of this is going to be from the point of view of the servants. So we’re going to see how they view the house guests.

And then another theme of this, I think, is Poirot’s, order and method. That’s something that Phyllida goes into over and over again. She wants things to be properly done, and she wants to set things to write so that the household can run smoothly.

Quotes

Now I’m not doing as many quotes from the books as I used to, but I did want to include this one because I really enjoyed it. Phyllida says “Murder will out, but managing a household went on.” So I thought that was a good encapsulation of the story for the book and a little bit of her motivation of why she’s involved.

Recommendations

All right, so let me talk about some recommendations. If you enjoyed this, you might also like, some read alike books. If you enjoy things about Christie, then you can always pick up Agatha Christie’s An Autobiography. And I will fully admit that I have not read the autobiography. It is quite a tome. It’s very thick, and I have started it, but I haven’t finished it.

If you like country house mysteries, there’s, of course, a ton of these that you could choose from, but I have a couple short list for you that you might enjoy. The first one is the Royal Spyness series by Rhys Bowen. The first book is Her Royal Spyness, and that is a look at the 1930s member of the Royal family and kind of gives you a lot of inside look at what life is like for somebody who’s related to the Royal family. These are all mysteries. So of course, she’s involved in a mystery in each one of these.

The other series is the Amory Ames series. The first book is Murder at the Brightwell by Ashley Weaver. Great country house mysteries in that series.

Black & Dod series by Diane James. One book in that series that I would recommend that has really a strong country house flavor to it is The Missing Diamond Murder.

Then there is the Freddy Pilkington-Soame series, and that’s by Clara Benson. The first book in that series is A Case of Blackmail in Belgravia, and that one is some of those take place in London, and then some of those also take place in country houses. But they all have kind of this 1930s country house flavor to them.

And then, of course, I have a series the High Society Lady Detective series. The first book in that series is Murder at Archly Manor, which of course takes place at a country estate.

If you like upstairs, downstairs mysteries. And this book has a lot of that about the classes and the differences of what they did and kind of a contrast of their lives, then you would enjoy A Lady and Lady’s Maid series by Alyssa Maxwell. The first book in that series is Murder Most Malicious.

And then there’s also the Below Stairs series by Jennifer Ashley. The first book in that series is Death Below Stairs. And that is about a cook and she works in the home of wealthy family.

If you like historical figures as sleuths, if you’re intrigued by that, there are so many of these and I’m just going to give you a smattering of these. There is a series with Agatha Christie as the main sleuth. The first book is called A Talent for Murder by Andrew Wilson.

There’s another series with Queen Elizabeth as the sleuth. It’s called the Majesty the Queen Investigates series. The first book is The Windsor Knot by SJ Bennett.

Another series that has a historical figure as a sleuth is the Being  Jane Austen series. And the first book is Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor by Stephanie Barron.

Going back to the golden age of fiction, we have the Josephine Tey series where Josephine Tey is a sleuth. The first book is An Expert in Murder by Nicola Upson.

Traveling back in time again is the Brontë Sisters Mystery series. The first book is The Vanished Bride by Bella Ellis.

And then lastly I’ve listed two more, these with male sleuths. We have the Oscar Wilde series. The first book is A Death of No Importance by Gyles Brandreth.

And then the last one is the Francis Bacon series and the first book is Murder by Misrule by Anna Castle.

So as you can see, historical figures, real people as fictional sleuths are very popular. And I think part of the reason they’re popular is we get a little inside look at how they lived and then we get that matched up with a mystery. So if you enjoy that, you’ve got these series to look for. Plus there’s so many more, I couldn’t list them all.

So my question for you is do you enjoy mysteries with historical figures as sleuths? If so, who is your favorite?

You can find me on Instagram at @sararosett, no H on Sara and no E on Rosett or leave a comment on the show notes for this episode which will be at sararosett.com/mallowan. And that’s M-A-L-L-O-W-A-N. I hope this podcast has let you revisit a favorite book or perhaps helps you discover a new author to try. If you’ve enjoyed it, I hope you’ll tell a fellow mystery reader thanks for listening and I’ll see you next time. Bye.