Unnatural Fire: A Countess Ashby de la Zouche Mystery

by Fidelis Morgan

Book Overview

It is the ragged end of the 17th century, and the countess Ashby de la Zouche is having rather a bad day. Well, year. ...Several years, actually. The money is long gone, along with the count, and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0688176836
• Release Date: March 2001
• Publisher: William Morrow
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.8" x 0.8" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

What Great Fun!

I just spent the last few nights reading "Unnatural Fire" and had the best time. It's certainly a page-turner, with the countess a silly old goose who gets smart and her trusty maidservant who is smart, and a pure delight. I'm not an avid reader of mysteries nor novels that are a series but Fedelis Morgan has made me a loyal fan. I've just ordered the next in the series, "The Rival Queens" and can't wait to get it. Morgan lets you prowl the streets of London with all it's odorous scents and you feel the danger lurking on every corner. I enjoyed the exploitive absence of gore most noted in so much of contemporary settings, even though gore was certainly an aspect of centuries past. I just hope the BBC does make this into a film for television and that by the time I finish the second book Morgan will have the third entry in this series ready for publication.

Very Entertaining--especially for a first novel

Fidelis Morgan's UNNATURAL FIRE is an unnaturally enjoyable historical mystery. She blends mystery, comedy, intrigue and a healthy measure of period details of Restoration-era London to whirl the reader back in time. I do sincerely hope she plans to write a long-lived series featuring Countess Ashby de la Zouche and her fiery partner-in-criminal investigation, maid and confidant, Alpiew. They do make a winning pair! Hats (or should I say, wigs?) off to Miss Morgan for a finely written and very, very enjoyable "romp" through the back alleys and other unseemly places of ye olde London!!

unnatural fire: a well written book...

unnatural fire: a well written book that keeps you guessing in the mystery of the storyline, from one twist and turn to the next. i really liked it and found it difficult to put it down once i got started. this one is a keeper!

an engaging good read

I really do hope that "Unnatural Fire" by Fidelis Morgan is the first book in a new series featuring Anastasia Ashby de la Zouche and Alpiew. This book is simply brimming with ingeniousness, vivacious energy and a great deal of humour. It's 1699 and William of Orange sits on the thrown of England, much to the disgust of Anastasia Ashby de la Zouch, Baroness Penge, Countess of Clapham and one of Charles II's former mistresses. The Countess is down on her luck -- high living, pilfering servants, and a husband who ran off with much of her money, has all but landed her in a near peniless state. Not one to throw her hands up in despair and do nothing, the Countess has tried her hand at various ventures. The current one being journalism. The Countess works as a stringer for Mr. Cue, ferreting out bits of information about the rich and the titled in society, and selling it as gossip to Mr. Cue. However she is 'between engagements' when she is thrown into Fleet Prison for non payment of a debt. Knowing that only she can get herself out of this jam, the Countess ferrets about for some juicy tidbit in order to buy her way out of the Fleet. And indeed she gleefully stumbles onto the sensational news that a very rich man about town has secretly wed an employee of a sex shop. Surely Mr. Cue will pay handsomely for this little tidbit! Unfortunately for the Countess, her former maid, Alpiew, is also in the Fleet, and she has also latched on to the same piece of gossip and successfully uses it to buy her way out of the Fleet. Alpiew immediately tries to finagle a contract for work from Mr. Cue. But he will only hire her if she has a permanent address. Realising that she needs the Countess, Alpiew strikes a bargain with the Countess: they will work as partners and Alpiew will use their initial earnings to buy the Countess's way out of the Fleet. And so the most unlikely of partnerships begins.The next day, a mysteriously veiled young woman arrives at the Countess's doorstep. Mr. Cue has recommended them to her as trustworthy agents. The lady wants the Countess and Alpiew to follow her husband, Beau Wilson, and to see what he is up to. She fears that he has a mistress and that he is bankrupting them to fulfill his greedy mistress's rapacious needs. The Countess and Alpiew readily agree to follow Beau about. And their quarry takes them all over London -- through the coffee shops to the halls of academia to the theatre to St. Paul's where it looks as if Beau is finally about to meet his inamorata. However instead of stumbling onto the guilty lovers, the Countess and Alpiew stumble over the dead body of Beau instead! Alpiew successfully takes to her heels, but the Countess is arrested by the watch for the murder. Now Alpiew must somehow unravel what is going on and rescue the Countess before she can be tried and hanged for a crime she did not commit!"Unnatural Fire" is a well written and researched mystery novel, that vividly evokes London in the 17th century -- sce

Historical mystery that makes for great reading

In 1699, Countess Ashby de la Zouche reflects on how far she has fallen. Only fifteen years have passed since her lover King Charles II died and now under the Dutch ruler she is doing time in Fleet Prison for owing money to a druggist. The countess realizes her only passage to freedom is selling gossip. She finds a gem with a high society marriage here in the prison. However, her former servant Alpiew, also a resident of Fleet, uses sex to attain the same information, but sells the juicy item to printers Mr. and Mrs. Cue first. Alpiew is freed, but quickly realizes she needs an address if she is to have the gossip reporter job. She returns to buy the Countess' freedom. The duo agrees to form a partnership of mistrust, as Ashby believes Alpiew stole her husband years ago. Cue sends them a client who hires them to follow her cheating spouse. They trail the merchant Beau Wilson, but someone kills him and the two sleuths begin inquiries into a deadlier game where they can become the victims. UNNATURAL FIRE is an entertaining historical mystery that is fun to read because of the depth of background material is neatly interwoven into the plot. Readers will love or hate the lead couple, but regardless of that fact, they will remain drawn into following their antics. The support cast provides layers of complexity and the feeling that the audience is watching a late seventeenth century movie unfold due to the richness of the text. Fidelis Morgan has written a ribald historical where any moment this reviewer expects Fielding's Tom Jones to aid the amateur sleuths.Harriet Klausner