Die I Will Not: A Regency Mystery

by S.K. Rizzolo

Book Overview

Unhappy wife and young mother Penelope Wolfe fears scandal for her family and worse. A Tory newspaper editor has been stabbed while writing a reply to the latest round of letters penned by the firebrand Collatinus. Twenty years before, her father, the radical Eustace Sandford, also wrote as Collatinus before he fled London just ahead of accusations of treason and murder--a mysterious beauty closely connected to Sandford and known only as N.D. had...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1464203229
• ISBN13: 9781464203220
• Release Date: November 2014
• Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
• Length: 279 Pages
• Weight: 0.93 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 4.5" x 9.9"
• Age Range: 14 to 10 years
• Grade Range: Grades 9 to 5

Customer Reviews

Much better than four stars, really!

I do wish I could give this book 4½ stars, which is what it really deserves. 4 just isn't enough, but 5 is a tad too much. I'd settle for 4¾, even, but since I can't do that, then it'll have to be just plain 4 with a star attached or something. The first 260 pages of this 322 page story were enthralling. Ms. Rizzolo has really done her homework, and captured the Regency era wonderfully well. The characters are believable and match the general excellence of the plot. So, what's my quibble, you ask? The two incidents delineated in pages 260 to 268 are a gimmick, I think. Or at least a let-down compared to the general high quality of the rest of the book. Perhaps the author needed help in getting the resolution of the mystery to her main characters, but to me, having them dream the results nearly simultaneously just didn't quite get it. I felt somewhat cheated. But then, after that lapse, she picks up again, and continues forward in a hair-raising sort of chase scene and damsel-in-distress conclusion that make wonderful sense, and demonstrate very well her considerable writing skills. It does seem rather strange to have one heroine and two heroes, but at least they're consistent to their era and themselves. Mrs. Penelope Wolfe is estranged from her painter husband, and cares for their three-year-old daughter on her own. Intelligent, educated, curious--she's a wonderful foil for the quiet, somewhat enigmatic young Barrister, Edward Buckler. Behind the both of them is the Bow Street Runner, John Chase, who sees beyond the normal range of human failings to get to the bottom of the various crimes he encounters in London. The crime in this first book of a welcome new series is the murder of Constance Tyrone, a young woman of good family, somewhat wealthy in her own right, fiercely independent and the founder of the St. Catherine Society, dedicated to helping women who would otherwise fall afoul of the law and/or society. Why was this young woman killed outside her office? When was she killed? These questions are almost more important to Chase than the identity of the one who did it. Eventually, however, he gets it all right, even if the solution did come to him in a dream. Atmospheric in setting, meticulous in detail, I would happily recommend this book to any reader who enjoys history or mystery or historical mysteries. Excellent reading on all counts!