Book 1 – “The Mitford Scandal” by Jessica Fellowes

When I chose my 20 books for this summer challenge from my tottering to-be-read piles I determined that they should be standalone titles. With this first book I have failed already ! The Mitford Scandal by Jessica Fellowes is one of a series of historical novels with a mystery/crime theme. I read it without realising this but it soon became obvious that I didn’t have the knowledge of the background of the main character, Louisa, although I don’t think it mattered. I did have a knowledge of British culture and society in the 1920s and 1930s and especially the history of the Mitford family but I don’t think that you need that background to understand the story.

Louisa is a fictional character who had worked as a servant in the Mitford family who are very much real people. She originally worked as a nursery maid to the girls when they were younger but in this story she is a personal maid for Diana Mitford who has just married Brian Guinness (if you know the history of the family you will know that this does not end well and the author does make this clear during the book).

A lot of the story revolves around the Mitfords and their friends but the author also includes some unexpected deaths which Louisa feels that she needs to investigate and which reconnect her with a previous friend/romantic interest who is a police officer. The deaths and the investigation are fictional but the author slots those events into the actual activities of the Mitfords and their friends at the time and uses some factual happenings as part of her mystery plot.

I didn’t enjoy this book much. I felt that it would have been better as an historical novel telling us about the life and activities of this family rather than adding a mystery plot to the factual elements. That’s a personal view because I often dislike historical novels which fictionalise real people. I did think, however, that the mystery element got somehow lost in the overall story and the book ended up being neither one thing nor the other. I also found Louisa a bit of a passive character – she observes some things but most of the information she gets is second hand from others although every time she listens in to what the Mitfords are saying she gets useful information for her investigation.

Book 1 of my challenge was, therefore, not a great success – although this book isn’t bad it wasn’t for me. But it is now off to a charity shop to find an owner who may enjoy it more than I did and I am about to start Book 2 which will be a non-fiction title.