A Murder at Rosamund’s Gate by
Susanna Calkins
In the mid-1660s in London Lucy
Campion is a chambermaid. She is a “good
girl” as she and her employers will admit and goes about her duties
faithfully. Her world is turned upside down
when her mistress’s ladies maid, Lucy’s best friend, Bessie, is found brutally
murdered in a field. Lucy’s brother Will
is sent to Newcastle to await trial for Bessie’s murder. Lucy knows that finding any evidence is the only
way she can help her brother and keep him from the hangman’s noose.
Lucy is a bit headstrong but she is
a believable character of the time. The
murder mystery is almost secondary to the time period. The persecution of the Quakers, life as a
servant, and the outbreak of the plague in 1666 all figure prominently in the
narrative. This is an often overlooked
time period, especially from the viewpoint of the help, and it was nice to
visit for a while.
