This was a really fun Golden Age Mystery and I didn’t even understand that if I were a puzzle freak, some of the clues that were there will be “well duh” to some readers. Blackstone Lodge is in a village in Yorkshire that no one has heard of. Among other things, it houses a well known, well regarded sanitarium for rich people with mental health issues. Also a manor house, church, pub/inn, a tower, a gate house and more. It is set near a river with some dangerous currents and tricks to it, near a cave with unstable roofing and near the moor where people disappear.
Blackstone Lodge has an odd history to it. Three hundred years ago, a man went in and never was seen again. This happened again a few years back. Nell Faban, a Fleet Street reporter who is presently without a gig decides to try to rent the lodge and sort out its mystery. She goes incognito in order to win over the locals but her direct style and tendency to fabricate does not help her. Ultimately, a cast of characters from London, Blackstone and each of its strange buildings and the past populate the book to create a very entertaining, well written, well plotted classic mystery that, as I said, has some clues in puzzle form. Enjoy!
They Called me Bookworm 