A review by jammersbookstacks
The Puzzle of Blackstone Lodge by Martin Edwards

adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Blackstone Lodge is set in  Yorkshire in 1930s. It is a tail in involving a locked room type mystery, a spooky tower, seances, dangerous caves, precarious cliffs, a small hostile village, and a very suspicious sanatorium. 

There’s a huge number of characters to keep track of which did make it more difficult on audio.  I liked all the breadcrumbs along the way to help me solve the mystery, and to throw me off track. 

All of the characters were well written and I liked how smart the character, Rachel Savernake, was. She was not that likable to me, but I did enjoy her thought processes. I think if I would’ve read the first two books I may have felt different about her.  It’s always best to know the backstory and about the character development when you read them in order.

A few things that stand out to me and made this book more enjoyable is I really appreciated there isn’t excessively graphic violence and there was no belittling of the women’s intelligence.  I did not feel like this book had a lot of terror or horror on it. So I classified this book as more than a cozy, but not a bloody thriller. 

The audio was done well and I enjoyed the narrator Helen MacFarlane

I really enjoyed the end and there was a good shock factor at the end. It was very well done and I would highly recommend this historical fiction mystery. As well as I’ll be reading the first couple books in this series.