Great cover. Great title. That’s all that’s great about Daisy Waugh’s In the Crypt with a Candlestick. I thought it was just me, that I didn’t get the British sense of humor. But, when I looked up reviews after I finished the book, there were as many one-star reviews as five-star ones, and those were from British readers. The blurb compared the book to P.G. Wodehouse and Agatha Christie. No. Just no.

The Todes of Tode Hall are wealthy landowners in England. When Sir Ecgbert Tode finally dies at age ninety-three, his widow, Lady Emma Tode is ready to escape the estate. She’s twenty-one years younger than her late husband, and she wants to spend her time in her villa in Capri. Unfortunately, none of her three children want to take over running the estate. Ecgbert, the twelfth Baronet, has been a voluntary “guest” at a private luxury care home for years. His sister, Nicola, is a passionate socialist. The youngest son, Esme, lives in Australia with his family, and has no intention of leaving his successful business to return to England. Lady Tode invites a nephew, Egbert and his wife, India, to run the family business.

Lady Tode is nowhere to be found on the day Egbert and India invite Alice Liddell to visit to see if she wants to be Household Manager. At fifty-one, Alice has never had a job, but her grandmother was once housekeeper at the estate, and she sent Alice’s application. Once Alice meets India, she’s coerced into leaving her house in London, to become India’s “Manager of Fun” with a rent-free house, a car, and anything else she really desires.

When Alice first toured the grounds, her grandmother insisted on seeing the family mausoleum, a monstrosity that smelled terrible. It’s on the day of a celebration, though, that everyone finds out why the mausoleum smells so bad. Lady Emma Tode did not leave for Capri. Instead, she’s lying dead, apparently murdered, in the family crypt.

Let’s just say, what happens with a murder investigation when no one cares who killed a dislikable woman? It seems the only person convinced it was murder is the ghost of Lady Emma’s mother-in-law who can only be seen by Alice and “Mad Ecgbert”. And, what is a ghost doing in a teapot anyways?

I agree with those readers who said all the characters were dislikable, and the book has little plot. It certainly doesn’t have an amateur sleuth or a proper murder investigation. And, the end just falls flat when no one cares about the solution.

No, Daisy Waugh is no P.G. Wodehouse or Agatha Christie.

Daisy Waugh’s website is https://www.daisywaugh.com/

In the Crypt with a Candlestick by Daisy Waugh. Pegasus Crime, 9781643138053 (hardcover), 288p.

FTC Full Disclosure – I read a .PDF to review for a journal.