GET ready to be grabbed by a new detective series featuring an endearing and very discreet heroine.
Agatha Christie meets Miss Fisher's Murders in the first of Kate Saunders' new Laetitia Rodd crime series, The Secrets of Wishtide.
Mrs Rodd, 52, is the impoverished widow of an Archdeacon with a sharp wit, a progressive attitude and a beloved younger brother, Fred, who is one of London's top criminal defence barristers.
When Fred brings to her attention a case involving the son of the well-respected and highly-connected Sir James Calderstone, Mrs Rodd sets off for Lincolnshire to go undercover as the family's new governess with the intention of helping avert an unsuitable marriage.
The seemingly simple case soon takes a far more unpleasant turn, and the sleuth must use her impeccable connections and invisibility as a respectable widow to solve a series of murders as the family's secrets unravel.
The dour police Inspector Blackbeard is pitched against Laetitia and Fred, but their mutual respect for the truth sees a grudging respect develop between the widow and the widower that may develop in future volumes.
This gripping page turner is the first of six to be released in The Laetitia Rodd Mysteries, and you'll be impatient to read the next.
The Secrets of Wishtide, Bloomsbury, RRP $27.99.
