Review: Wouldn't It Be Deadly by D. E. Ireland

A Mysterious Review of Wouldn't It Be Deadly by D. E. Ireland. A Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins Mystery.

Review summary: This is a delightful, cleverly plotted mystery, with engaging characters from literature showing wit and good humor while solving a whodunit-style story in Edwardian London. Thoroughly enjoyable, it is a sparkling start to this new series. (Click here for text of full review.)

Our rating:

Wouldn't It Be Deadly
D. E. Ireland
A Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins Mystery
Minotaur Books (September 2014)

Publisher synopsis: Following her successful appearance at an Embassy Ball — where Eliza Doolittle won Professor Henry Higgins' bet that he could pass off a Cockney flower girl as a duchess — Eliza becomes an assistant to his chief rival Emil Nepommuck. After Nepommuck publicly takes credit for transforming Eliza into a lady, an enraged Higgins submits proof to a London newspaper that Nepommuck is a fraud. When Nepommuck is found with a dagger in his back, Henry Higgins becomes Scotland Yard's prime suspect. However, Eliza learns that most of Nepommuck's pupils had a reason to murder their blackmailing teacher.

As another suspect turns up dead and evidence goes missing, Eliza and Higgins realize the only way to clear the Professor's name is to discover which of Nepommuck's many enemies is the real killer. When all the suspects attend a performance of Hamlet at Drury Lane, Eliza and Higgins don their theatre best and race to upstage a murderer.