A Penny for the Queen

Penny McBride — Book 1

A Corseted, Biting Victorian Mystery in Edinburgh — Cosy Mystery

Edinburgh, 1895. The Queen puts her crown on display, the ladies their jewels… and someone fully intends to walk away with the lot. A young lady who'd rather be transported to Australia than walk down the aisle. A fishwife with a formidable right hook. A French detective who never existed.

Penny McBride dreams of joining the Edinburgh police. Her family dreams of seeing her walk down the aisle instead. When the Stuart Crown arrives under her father's guard, she finally has the perfect opportunity to prove herself — unfortunately, in 1895, the female brain is considered highly decorative, as long as nobody expects it to do anything.

A lady's companion disappears. An impostor with suspiciously perfect manners moves in. A chihuahua bares its teeth. And since nobody ever listens to Penny…

She invents Hector Poivron, legendary detective of the French Sûreté.

There's just one problem: everyone wants to meet him.

• A Victorian cozy mystery, sharp-tongued and deliciously British, somewhere between Agatha Christie and a period-costume sitcom
• A case steeped in high-society secrets, white-glove rivalries, and delightfully suspicious characters
• No gore, no graphic violence: a story with bite that always stays cozy
• Perfect for fans of proper British whodunits, deadpan humor, and heroines who refuse to know their place

★★★★★

"Dialogue with teeth, white-gloved comebacks, and venomous humor stirred into the tea. A Victorian cozy mystery run like a sitcom: elegant, breakneck, irresistible."

— Marie-Thérèse Coelho, Babelio