‘Mrs Hudson and the Belladonna Inheritance’ by Martin Davies

Published by Allison and Busby,
22 January 2026.
ISBN: 978-0-74903249-4 (HB)

‘Mrs Hudson and the Belladonna Inheritance’ is the eighth novel in Davies’s Holmes and Hudson series. I have previously reviewed its predecessor, ‘Mrs Hudson and the Capricorn Incident’, which featured a threat to world peace. This novel centres around another danger. The wealthy, universally detested and malevolent Charles Belladonna who lives in a grand house that he won in a game of cards (he renames it Belladonna Hall), and spends most of his time in his laboratory developing an explosive which will require only a small amount to cause catastrophic damage. He takes a wife who dies in childbirth. Belladonna subsequently keeps his infant son by him in the laboratory, but in the chaos following a conflagration (out of which Belladonna is dragged unconscious) the son – who has previously been scarred by another accident in the laboratory - disappears. 

Belladonna is later killed in another explosion in his laboratory caused by the use of impure chemicals. In the meantime, he has written his will. This states that unless the son, Paul, has made himself known to Belladonna’s executor by his (Paul’s) 26th birthday, the entire estate will go the Margate Refuge for Retired Donkeys. This is another example of Belladonna’s malevolence: his potential asinine benefaction is not because he has a liking for such animals but because his sole executor and neighbour, Colonel Stephenson, with whom he was not on particularly amicable terms and who was thus surprised to be named executor, has detested donkeys ever since he ‘had his arm broken by an army mule out in the Punjab’. Belladonna included even more mischief in this will. If his heir appears, he will initially receive only personal effects and an annuity unless within one year he has taken the Belladonna name and married Georgina Beatrice Montmorency-Smythe, the niece of the man from whom Belladonna won his residence (then called Montmorency Hall) and who now lives in genteel poverty. As Holmes observes, ‘You must have heard enough by now to realise that this man Belladonna was motivated entirely by spite. He had already expunged the Montmorency name from the family’s ancestral dwelling. Now he planned to bring about its extinction altogether. If the young lady is to avail herself of his charity, she must give herself in marriage to his son and take on the hated Belladonna name.’ 

I hope you have followed me this far. There are a number of further complications, of course. One is that nobody is aware of the location of the heir’s scar, detailed in a document held securely by Belladonna’s solicitor, other than the boy’s former nurse whose whereabouts are unknown. Given that Belladonna had previously let it be known that he would sell the recipe for his explosive to any country willing to pay a colossal sum, there is a race to find details of the scar and to produce claimants to be his heir. The British establishment is unsurprisingly very concerned by this. There are subplots involving shoes and socks (I am slightly concerned by Davies’s fetish for footwear as I seem to recall that boots by a railway were of importance in his previous novel) and even mutton pies. Holmes and Watson are perhaps more prominent than in the previous novel, but it is again Mrs Hudson and particularly Flotsam, the endearing yet shrewd narrator, who win the day. The latter’s past life plays some part in proceedings, including a criminal who has a record of involvement in particularly unsavoury activities. There is a suitably comic episode involving cows as the novel reaches its conclusion as well as an important revelation that is seemingly known only to Flotsam. We are also left wondering about her love life. 

But as with its predecessor (I still have yet to read earlier novels in the series – a treat to come), this is enormous fun. It is well-plotted and a thoroughly entertaining and enjoyable story, told with Davies’s trademark light and witty touch. I must confess to a slight disappointment that the memorable Irascible Earl, so magnificent in the ‘Capricorn Incident’, makes only a brief appearance, but his absence can be endured given the wealth of other characters. If you have not yet read any of this series, I urge you to do so. You will not be disappointed.
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Reviewer: David Whittle

Martin Davies grew up in North West England. He has travelled widely, including in the Middle East and India, and his plan for The Conjuror's Bird  was put together on a trekking holiday in Greenland. He lives in South West London and works for the BBC as a producer.

David Whittle is firstly a musician (he is an organist and was Director of Music at Leicester Grammar School for over 30 years) but has always enjoyed crime fiction. This led him to write a biography of the composer Bruce Montgomery who is better known to lovers of crime fiction as Edmund Crispin, about whom he gives talks now and then.