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Summary: House party mystery farce
Review: The house party mystery is a classic format. Here, Peters takes the format and applies a liberal dose of history as the guests are a group dedicated to clearing the name of Richard III. (Richard is the king whose image is that of the one who killed his nephews.) And while this book is hardly a technical treatise on Richard's innocence, it is an entertaining pitch for that argument. (Josephine Tey's "The Daughter of Time" is a more convincing fictional argument - also a great read.)As the guests wander around in costume and are generally being eccentric, accidents start to happen. Most assume it is just a "joker" trying to disrupt the meeting but Jacqueline Kirby is suspicious. It's a fun, light entertainment as she considers each of the guests as potential suspects -- and then saves the day. Bottom-line: This is the second in Peter's Kirby series. Reading of the first book isn't necessary. This book is a good (not great) read for fans of English history who can appreciate a cast of overblown characters. Amelia Peabody fans may find the book too different for their tastes.
Rating: 
Summary: A wonderful and interesting book.
Review: There is no more entertaining way to learn about history or archaeology than reading an Elizabeth Peters mystery. This is one of her finest.
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Summary: history, romance, and murder
Review: This is a wonderful, fun read. They're times when you feel like you are playing the game clue and which adds to the fun. History of the two princes who Richard III may have murdered is interwoven extremely well throughout. There is also a romance between the hero and heroine. The hero is in his fifties and the heroine is a sexy, strong, intelligent, middle age woman. Yeah!
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Summary: Read this Book!
Review: This is Elizabeth Peters' best book! She skillfully explains and introduces what is generally a very confusing period of history. She is educated and always tells a wonderfull story!
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Summary: Disappointing
Review: This, the second Jacqueline Kirby mystery, was a terrible disappointment. The mystery evolves around the going-ons of a English country house party, attended by a bunch of ho-hum characters. When they start to die, it gives Jacqueline a mystery to solve, but the people are so unlikable you can't help but think, "Why bother?" And Ms. Kirby comes off as somewhat mean-spirited in this one. Oh well.
Rating: 
Summary: Want a headache? Read this.
Review: Thomas doesn't know why he isn't making any progress with lovely academic Jacqueline Kirby. Personally, I think it's because he's sort of patronizing, and because he checks out 20-year-olds in front of her face. But what do I know? Anyway, he invites her to a Ricardian party. He and a group of friends are avid fans of Richard III, and they are meeting to re-enact their favorite historical characters from the time period of his reign. As an added bonus, their host, Richard Weldon, promises to reveal a long-lost letter exonerating Richard III of the murders of his nephews. We meet the guests. In order to follow the story, we have to remember all of these folks' names--both first and last, since some of them are referred to by their first name in one sentence and their last name in the next. We also have to remember all their complex soap-operatic relationships. On top of that, to follow the story, we also have to keep track of which character they are impersonating, *and* how that person died. All of this, IMHO, is a pretty big outlay of brain cells for a 200-page "light read". A prankster begins staging fake "murders" based on the deaths of the various historical figures. These include such unlikely pranks as knocking a man out, then rigging up a pulley to dangle him headfirst into an empty wine barrel, thus referring to the Duke of Clarence's drowning in a cask of wine. That's a lot of trouble to go to. When I got to the end, I couldn't believe the culprit had gone to that much trouble for his/her goal. Several of the pranks are unrealistically complex. But they escalate, until Thomas and Jacqueline begin to suspect real danger at the manor. Will they figure out who is behind them before somebody really ends up dead? Overall, this is a contrived, unrealistic mystery which gets way too headache-inducing with all the different names one must remember--and I was *still* able to figure out the culprit fairly early on because only one person seemed to have a motive. I wondered why I had bothered trying to keep track of all the characters. In addition, the book is fraught with errors: proofreading errors ("King Richarad"), editing errors (something referred to on the back cover never actually happens), and continuity errors (a man admires a woman's tan one day, and her aristocratic pallor on the next). I do not recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: Want a headache? Read this.
Review: Thomas doesn't know why he isn't making any progress with lovely academic Jacqueline Kirby. Personally, I think it's because he's sort of patronizing, and because he checks out 20-year-olds in front of her face. But what do I know? Anyway, he invites her to a Ricardian party. He and a group of friends are avid fans of Richard III, and they are meeting to re-enact their favorite historical characters from the time period of his reign. As an added bonus, their host, Richard Weldon, promises to reveal a long-lost letter exonerating Richard III of the murders of his nephews. We meet the guests. In order to follow the story, we have to remember all of these folks' names--both first and last, since some of them are referred to by their first name in one sentence and their last name in the next. We also have to remember all their complex soap-operatic relationships. On top of that, to follow the story, we also have to keep track of which character they are impersonating, *and* how that person died. All of this, IMHO, is a pretty big outlay of brain cells for a 200-page "light read". A prankster begins staging fake "murders" based on the deaths of the various historical figures. These include such unlikely pranks as knocking a man out, then rigging up a pulley to dangle him headfirst into an empty wine barrel, thus referring to the Duke of Clarence's drowning in a cask of wine. That's a lot of trouble to go to. When I got to the end, I couldn't believe the culprit had gone to that much trouble for his/her goal. Several of the pranks are unrealistically complex. But they escalate, until Thomas and Jacqueline begin to suspect real danger at the manor. Will they figure out who is behind them before somebody really ends up dead? Overall, this is a contrived, unrealistic mystery which gets way too headache-inducing with all the different names one must remember--and I was *still* able to figure out the culprit fairly early on because only one person seemed to have a motive. I wondered why I had bothered trying to keep track of all the characters. In addition, the book is fraught with errors: proofreading errors ("King Richarad"), editing errors (something referred to on the back cover never actually happens), and continuity errors (a man admires a woman's tan one day, and her aristocratic pallor on the next). I do not recommend this book.
Rating: 
Summary: You Can Tell a Difference
Review: You can certainly tell a difference in Elizabeth Peter's current writing style and what she was writing nearly thirty years ago. The Jacqueline Kirby series was one of two that she was writing almost concurrently (the other being the Vicky Bliss series) and dates before the Amelia Peabody books. The writing is not as smooth as the Peabody ones but is still enjoyable. In this entry, Kirby is invited to a weekend in an English manor house to look at a letter that is supposed to be sufficient evidence to prove King Richard III of being innocent of killing his two nephews. The members of a Ricardian society are meeting and are playing the roles of someone that played a part in that history. Once there, several members of the party are treated to practical jokes. It was, for me, not too confusing to keep the characters straight; I basically just remembered the characters' real names as opposed to their role-playing character. Jacqueline is able to figure out the culprit behind the practical jokes before it goes too far but, of course, not before the reader is led to believe that something serious has happened. While this series does not live up to the Peabody books, and this book is nowhere in the league of "Daughter of Time" by Josephine Tey, it is quite an enjoyable read and I do really like the main character.
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