A Killer Ball at Honeychurch Hall by Hannah Dennison, a Mysterious Review.

Review: Katherine "Kat" Stanford has resigned from her job in London as a host of a TV realty show, "Fakes and Treasures". She hopes to find a place where she can open a store to buy and sell antiques; she even has a name picked out for it: "Kat's Collectables". She thought she would never want to leave London, but after going to be with her mother, Iris, in Little Dipperton, two hundred miles from the city, she decided she wanted to stay. Here they are living in on an English countryside manor estate. Iris has a small apartment in the Carriage House of Honeychurch Hall while Kat is fixing up an eighteenth century gatehouse for "Kat's Collectables". She has been asked by Rupert, the 15th Earl of Grenville and the son of the estate's owner, his mother, Lady Edith Honeychurch, to evaluate a painting he wishes to sell to get money to fix the main hall in the mansion. They have little money and the rooms are badly in need of repair. While Kat was trying to get the painting off the wall, she slipped and fell into a hidden room finding the skeleton of a woman who appears to have a broken neck, in A Killer Ball at Honeychurch Hall, the third mystery in this series by Hannah Dennison.

Kat can't believe what she has found. Was this an old murder? Why is there a hidden room just six feet below the main hall that no one apparently knew was there? They learn that the woman was Pandora, a lady of high society from America, who was at Lady Edith's birthday party in 1958. Iris knew who she was because, although she was not a guest of the party, she was there and she snuck in with her brothers to watch the festivities. So, she there at the time of the woman's death. And so were others, who remember that Iris was seen arguing with Pandora.

A few days after Kat finds Pandora's body, a man, who had had a brief affair with Iris many years ago, was found dead on the grounds of Honeychurch. Iris is considered a suspect in the man's death, and the police hold her for Pandora's murder as well. Kat is devastated. Will she be able to solve these mysteries? Or will her nosing about put her own life in danger?

Even after three books in this series, Kat is still learning things about her mother that surprise her. Too, Iris seems to take a very flexible approach to telling the truth, so it's never quite clear when or if she's lying when asked a question about the past. This clearly has the capacity to set up a wide variety of potential storylines, keeping the series dynamic (at least to date). The supporting cast of characters is an eccentric bunch, which can, admittedly be amusing if also a little eye-rolling at times, leaving Kat, even at her most unconventional, to be about the only reasonable person around. Though the murder mystery storyline isn't all that demanding, everything else about A Killer Ball at Honeychurch Hall will leave readers entertained.

Special thanks to guest reviewer Betty of The Betz Review for contributing her review of A Killer Ball at Honeychurch Hall.

Acknowledgment: Minotaur Books provided a copy of A Killer Ball at Honeychurch Hall for this review.

A Killer Ball at Honeychurch Hall

A Kat Stanford Mystery by Hannah Dennison