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| View Larger Image | Face Down In The Marrow-Bone Pie
by Kathy Lynn Emerson
| | List Price: | $5.99 |  | | 19 Used starting at: | $3.80 | | 1 Collectible starting at: | $12.00 | | | | | Sales Rank: | 692608 | | Studio: | Kensington | | | Binding: | Paperback | | Number Of Pages: | 256 | | Publication Date: | April 01, 2000 | | Publisher: | Kensington |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
"Today's letter was not a summons to serve Queen Elizabeth. It came from Lancashire. John Bexwith, my steward at Appleton Manor, is dead."
Susanna frowned, surprised that this news should have affected her husband so strongly. "The man was quite elderly," she said hesitantly, "was he not?"
"Your memory is excellent," Robert told her, absently tucking an unruly lock of dark brown hair back up under her brocaded cap. "He was found face down in a marrow-bone pie."
With that incredible statement, Robert placed the letter in his wife's outstretched hand.
Face Down in the Marrow-Bone Pie is a delightfully cozy Elizabethan mystery introducing Susanna, Lady Appleton. When her husband's steward dies in a unique, ignominious, and highly suspicious manner, Susanna takes advantage of her husband's absence on a political mission for Queen Elizabeth to investigate Bexwith's mysterious demise.
The serving wench who found Bexwith claims that he was frightened to death by a ghost, but Susanna can think of several poisons that could have been concealed in the marrow-bone pie. (Susanna is something of an expert on poisons, having been inspired by her sister's fatal encounter with some poisonous berries to write a cautionary herbal for housewives.)
Even if Bexwith was poisoned, was it accidental or intentional? As if the case weren't complicated enough, Susanna must also unmask a "ghost"-- or are the ghost and the poisoner one and the same?
Kathy Lynn Emerson's debut Elizabethan mystery will delight as it introduces you to a sixteenth-century husband's worst nightmare: an intelligent, no-nonsense wife who happens to know hundreds of poisons.
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CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 10 reviews)
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Review - Face Down in the Marrow Bone Pie by Kathy Lynn Emerson 
The Elizabethan era is one of the most intriguing and fascinating times of England's colorful history. This may be the reason why so many authors, such as Fiona Buckley, Karen Harper, Edward Marston and Kathy Lynn Emerson, choose that time period as the backdrop for their mysteries. The glamour of court life, wars against Spain and France, and the strife at home give the authors plenty of events as a basis of their stories.
Emerson's first mystery with Lady Susanna Appleton is set in the first year of Elizabeth's reign. The Lady's husband Sir Robert is sent to France by good Queen Bess on a reconnaissance mission loosely disguised as a gift giving gesture to the new French king.
During his absence, Susanna travels to her husband's ancestral home Appleton Manor where the steward died under circumstances she finds odd. Although she and her retinue arrive several weeks after the death and there is no evidence that the man's passing was anything other than natural, Susanna continues to probe, snoop and ask questions surrounding the deaths of the steward and her father-in-law's two years prior.
Her investigation is thwarted by the local villagers' mistrust of the newcomers to the manor, the strange family of the neighboring manor and the general opinion that Sir Robert's boyhood home is haunted by a vengeful ghost.
Slowly but persevering, Lady Appleton finds out more about her husband's family and their history than he ever told her.
Emerson's Susanna is a very strong-will and stubborn woman who doesn't exactly bully her husband but forces her wishes and does what she wants. Sir Robert appears almost cuckolded. His trip to France in intermingled in the novel but adds nothing to the mystery and becomes more a distraction rather than a sub-plot. It was as if Emerson only used it to show her knowledge of the French monarchy during Elizabeth's early reign and get Sir Robert out of the way to allow Susanna her freedom to investigate the steward's death without interruption. The only cross-connect between the two stories is a brief but very important event at the climax of the mystery.
It seems that Susanna is based loosely on Queen Elizabeth I, whose intelligence, wit and eccentricities are portrayed accurately although the monarch makes a very brief appearance. But Lady Appleton becomes almost too over-bearing for the reader because she is always right with few flaws.
Even with all that, Face Down in the Marrow-Bone Pie is a fun read and does whet the readers' appetite for more. I definitely plan to continue reading Emerson's Face Down series.
August 03, 2008 | |
face down in the marrow-bone pie 
"Face Down in the Marrow-Bone Pie" is a great historical mystery set in Elizabethan England. The heroine, Lady Susanna Appleton, is immediately likable as she goes against the societal norms of the day; she is an educated & outspoken woman. Her servants play interesting supporting roles, namely her personal maid, Jennet, who has an equally sharp tongue. As part of the mystery, there is even a ghost at Appleton Manon. I highly recommend this book for lovers of historical mysteries.
March 09, 2008 | |
Never underestimate a woman
I really enjoyed this book. Emerson combined a twisty, intriguing puzzle with a classic battle of the sexes. Susanna, Lady Appleton, goes behind her husband's back to investigate the death of a steward found "face down in a marrow-bone pie," convinced he might have been poisoned. This enrages her husband, Sir Robert, the typical Elizabethan misogynist with definite ideas about "a woman's place" (even toward his sovereign lady, Queen Elizabeth). Susanna always stays one step ahead of her husband, which irritates him to no end.
The book's pace was more sedate than many modern-day mysteries, but definitely worth it. Emerson's writing style reminded me a bit of Ellis Peters' "Brother Cadafel" mysteries. She revealed tiny pieces of the puzzle just often enough to keep me turning pages.
I'm looking forward to reading the rest of this series.
June 05, 2006 | |
Won't disappoint you
Fun romp through another time period. Lady Appleton, married to a womanizing prigg, spends her time solving murder cases. She's an only child, which was the cause for her unusal education (for a girl that is). i. e. She was the son her father never had. She not overly attractive either, which is a break from the norm. Luckly, she's got brains out the wazo and her husband is often away from home (being a spy and all) so it's up to Lady Appleton to save the day. I know this all sounds common place, but the author pulls it off with outstanding wit and dry humor. She also does a wonderful job of bring the Elizabethian time period true to life. You won't be disappointed.
January 13, 2004 | |
entertaining historical mystery
Set in Elizabethan England, author Kathy Emerson has chosen an interesting historical period for her mystery series and an intriguing heroine in Susanna, Lady Appleton -- a proto-feminist educated by her father and grudgingly admired by her more conventional husband. Emerson introduces a great deal of information about the times, the people and the herbs without making it painful, and the book is readable for that alone. The heroine and other characters are believable and three-dimensional and the murder and its solution are reasonably well-done -- better than many historical mysteries. I look forward to reading others in the series.
October 16, 2002 | |
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