Jill Churchill, Grace and Favor: In The Still Of The Night

In the Still of the Night: A Grace and Favor Mystery by Jill Churchill

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is the first I read of the Grace and Favor books, book 2 I believe. It was the only one at the nearest library they had (the other one had most of the others). This one got me hooked, but it isn't my favorite, Someone To Watch Over Me is my favorite.



The plot of this one, if I remember (being a few months ago that I read the one's I've read) was pretty good. It wasn't the easiest one I've read, so that's good.



Again, as with the other Grace and Favor books, you get a bit of a history lesson with your read.





Blurb from Author's site:



In the Still of the Night

Lily Brewster and her brother Robert have all the appearances of being rich even though the family fortune went out the window with the crash of 1929. But thanks to great-uncle Horatio who left them Grace and Favor Cottage, a huge mansion, the Brewsters live in the style which they had become accustomed. To make sure they didn't go back to being society bums, crafty old Horatio attached some strings to his bequest–the poor Brewsters have to work for money to survive When Lily came up with the ideas to turn a profit by luring their society friends to Grace and Favor for a paying weekend, she didn't plan on a who-dun-it with one guest dead, one missing, and Lily and Robert chasing a murderer.


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Jill Churchill, Grace and Favor: Someone To Watch Over Me

Someone to Watch Over Me by Jill Churchill

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
I liked this book the best of all the Grace and Favor books. The author enlightened me to even more of 1930's history, such as The Bonus Army, the despicable actions of Hoover and MacArthur (yes, THAT MacArthur) with the somewhat unwilling participation of Eisenhower as well. (this last bit I found out while researching the Bonus Army and the horrid things they went thru due to the mistreatment and disregard of the government...sound familiar?)



Of all of Jill Churchill's books, this one I most recommend. This one has a period of our history that we forgot and need to remember, especially during our own time of war today. We need to make sure, irregardless of our own opinions of the war- for or against- that those that fight and defend us in the USA and other places are treated with respect and dignity and taken care of when they return.



Blurb from Author's Site:



SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME

Lily and Robert each have a murder to solve. Robert’s is discovered when he’s got helpers taking down the old ice house in the woods to reuse the wood. It’s an almost mummified body of a well-dressed man. Robert can’t stand not knowing how and when and why he got there.



Meanwhile, Lily is at the Voorburg Ladies League meeting when Police Chief Walker arrives to tell one of the other women her husband’s been killed. Lily is determined to get to the bottom of this before the Police Chief can.



While lots of people’s old secrets are revealed and picked apart by the brother and the sister, Jack Summer has gone to take a first hand look at the Bonus March going on in Washington D.C. and gets into the thick of the horror there.



There are some surprising twists and turns as all three stories are resolved.


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Jill Churchill, Grace and Favor: Love For Sale

Love for Sale: A Grace & Favor Mystery by Jill Churchill

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
As much as I like the Grace and Favor books, this one just didn't live up to the others as much. But it is still good and I do recommend.



It was a weird, convoluted read, and while you may pick the "bad guy" out early on, and the reasons behind it, it still takes you for a mental rollercoaster of a ride trying to sort out the stories.





Blurb from Author's site:



LOVE FOR SALE

Sister and brother Lily and Robert Brewster raised in the lap of luxury, may no longer have a penny to their names. But at least they have a roof over their heads — which is more than may can say in this bleak November of 1932. And now there’s even some cash rolling in, since the Brewsters have taken part time teaching duties at the local grade school.



But their luck turns sour when a mysteriously and badly disguised stranger comes to Grace and Favor wishing to pay generously to have a very secret meeting there shortly before the national election of either Hoover or Roosevelt. Are they gangsters? Pretty Boy Floyd is rumored to be somewhere near. Worse yet, are they a rabid political group trying to stop Roosevelt being elected at last minute by making up some real dirt about him?



When one of the mystery guests is murdered in his bath, and Mary Towerton’s little boy is kidnapped, the pace becomes hectic. In the end a local woman Lily has made friends with, a secretary from upriver, and one of the children at the school provide the vital clues that allow Lily to put two and two together, but only after a wild car chase with three women drivers.




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Jill Churchill, Grace and Favor: It Had To Be You

Who's Sorry Now?: A Grace & Favor Mystery by Jill Churchill

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
I really enjoy Jill Churchill's Grace and Favor books, but haven't read nearly enough of them, LOL. I learned a lot of history just by researching some of the social situations she mentions and/or alludes to in her books.



This book was a really good read, but I did kind of wonder about the swastika mentioned in the book. I wondered if that really would have had such an impact before WWII as after. That would be my only real criticism.



Recommended for any who enjoy mysteries set in the depression era, or anyone who loves cozies.





Blurb from Author's site (www.cozybooks.com):



WHO'S SORRY NOW?

Sister and Brother duo Lily and Robert Brewster may not have a penny to their names, but at least they are in good company. Times are bad for the whole country in 1933. The town's post office burned down and wasn't replaced, so the mail gets dumped off in bags by trains going up the Hudson River, and people have to rummage for their letters and packages.



When a shocked Robert hears a group of gossipy old women going through other people's mail and even threatening to destroy it, he knows something must be don. Perhaps the kindly porter at the train station who recently help haul bags and trunks for a young woman and her newly arrived German Grandfather, would sort throught the mail in a orderly and private fashion.



But when the porter is found dead, and a red swastika is painted on the German's tailor's new shop window, Robert knows that something deeper and more sinister is going on. Even back at Grace and Favor, the town's best handymen, Harry and Jim Harbinger, are hired to pull out some dead bushes in front of the house, a very old skeleton is is found tanlgled in the roots, which Lily finds interesting when a visiting archeologist carefully unearths it. Robert's not happy about this.


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Jill Churchill, Grace and Favor: Who's Sorry Now, Bk

It Had to Be You: A Grace & Favor Mystery by Jill Churchill

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
I must say, I like the Grace and Favor books better than the Jane Jeffrey books (not that I dislike them). In these books, I learned a bit of history I didn't learn in high school. But then that isn't hard considering that in the south that I grew up in most of American History classes revolved around the Civil War. The era just before FDR came to be president is a bit of a blur. Churchill's books, while fiction, helped fill in some details...and trust me, I checked if some of these were real incidents or not. And they were.



These are not "heavy thinking" books, they are cozies to be enjoyed as a relatively quick read. Despite that, I really recommend these books for history buffs as well as cozy readers.







Here is the blurb from the author's site:



IT HAD TO BE YOU

CIt’s the 3rd of March 1933, the day before Franklin Roosevelt’s inauguration and Robert goes to Washington D.C. for the event. While he’s gone, Lily is visiting a nursing home close to Grace and Favor. The owner, Miss Twibell, an experienced nurse who owns it, is minus an assistant nurse. She wants to hire Lily and Robert.



One of the patients, a nasty old man, Sean Connor, is the only patient who is seriously ill, and not expected to live very much longer. The first day the Brewster’s work there, he goes into a coma and dies. Nobody’s surprised until it’s revealed that he’s been murdered. Chief of Police Walker can’t imagine why somebody would bother to murder old Mr. Connor when he had only hours to live. Several people visited that morning.



Walker also has another crime to deal with. A young man was reported to have been pushed into an almost frozen lake near a town upriver before last Christmas. No body was found. Now, when the ice started the spring break-up, a body came to the surface, so deteriorated that nobody can figure out who it might be. Walker interviews some of the neighbors. Then having given the temporarily disabled chief of police a bit of advice, before going back to Voorburg.



Walker, helped along by Lily and Robert’s snooping, begins to see the patterns in both crimes starting to turn into good theories. But lacking solid proof, he has to call on Lily and Robert to acquire a vital piece of evidence.




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