A To Z Blogging Challenge 2025: Mysteries! A Is For Archer

C. J. Archer is an author I have just discovered. She seems to be very prolific, writing both mysteries and speculative fiction. This novel, Murder At The Mayfair Hotel, is the first of a series. The heroine and sleuth is Cleopatra(Cleo) Fox, who, in this book, has just come to live with her aunt, uncle and cousins at the Mayfair Hotel in London, after losing her grandmother, who had brought her up. She lost both her parents as a child.

Three chapters into the novel one of the guests is found horribly dead in her room. Cleo and some of the staff get together to find the murderer. Will the hotel go down as other guests find out and leave and the newspapers report it? Who could have done it? Suspects include a staff member whose father is the detective inspector investigating the case. 

This is an entertaining cosy set in the late Victorian era. Cleo is a likeable character and the Victorian hotel described is fascinating.

If you are curious about this series, this first novel is currently free on both Apple Books and Kindle, and the other ebooks are not expensive, about A$6.99 each. If you do get it on Kindle, you can buy the audiobook that goes with it for only A$2.99. Definitely worth checking out!