‘The Murder Quadrille’ by Fidelis Morgan

Published by Lightning. 2012.
ISBN: 978-0-9570743-8-5

A combination of the macabre and the funny makes this a fascinating read. We start with a suburban dinner party which doesn’t go too well for the couple giving it. Their guests are a disparate lot with different areas of expertise and differing levels of intelligence. Over their meal they discuss the local disappearance of a librarian whom they presume has been murdered . Various events get hilariously intertwined in the following days and we follow with fascination the activities and thoughts of the six characters who had been dining.

There is much humour - the dim girlfriend Lisa is particularly amusing when she converses with her hairdresser, as is Martin Beaumont, the host of the dinner party, in his misapprehensions of what is happening. At the same time there is a palpable sense of menace. Because we go from the minds and experiences of one character to another the level of tension stays high as the reader must wait for a later chapter for further resolution of a situation. This is an unusual book very well constructed and extremely readable.

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Reviewer: Jennifer S. Palmer

Fidelis Morgan has written other crime books, fiction, non fiction and plays. This book is her first modern mystery. It is also available on Kindle. Her crime fiction series about Countess Ashby de la Zouche in the Restoration period begins with Unnatural Fire.

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Reviewer: Jennifer Palmer

Fidelis Morgan is an English actress and writer. She has acted with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre in repertory in various British cities and in the West End. She has written stage plays based on Samuel Richardson’s Pamela and Patrick Hamilton’s Hangover Square. Her non-fiction writing includes The Female Wits, the first study of female playwrights of the Restoration stage and biographies

of women from the 17th and 18th centuries including Charlotte Clarke. Her novels include the Countess Ashby de la Zouche series of historical crime mysteries including The Rival Queens.

Jennifer Palmer Throughout my reading life crime fiction has been a constant interest; I really enjoyed my 15 years as an expatriate in the Far East, the Netherlands & the USA but occasionally the solace of closing my door to the outside world and sitting reading was highly therapeutic. I now lecture to adults on historical topics including Famous Historical Mysteries.