The Mitford Murders

DEBUT In her first novel, the author of five companion books to the PBS series Downton Abbey brings readers a classic mystery based on a 1920s unsolved murder in England. The plucky heroine, Louisa Cannon, flees an abusive uncle in London to take a job as a nursery maid in the country for the Mitford family. Sixteen-year-old Nancy Mitford (the future novelist and one of the famous Mitford sisters) develops a keen interest in the murder of Florence Nightingale Shore, a retired wartime nurse, on a train. Louisa and railway police officer Guy Sullivan follow the leads with Nancy's help. There are plenty of surprises and the side plot involving Louisa's uncle rounds out the story. The secondary characters are well developed; you can almost see Nanny Blor bustling around the nursery. Glimpses of post-World War I England, the lives of both the poor and the rich, and the workings of the eccentric Mitfords add to the atmosphere.