A Rogue's Company: A Sparks & Bainbridge Mystery

by Allison Montclair

Overview

*A PW Pick of the Week!*

In Allison Monclair's A Rogue's Company, business becomes personal for the Right Sort Marriage Bureau when a new client, a brutal murder, two kidnappings, and the recently returned from Africa Lord Bainbridge threatens everything that one of the principals holds dear.

In London, 1946, the Right Sort Marriage Bureau is getting on its feet and expanding. Miss Iris Sparks and Mrs. Gwendolyn Bainbridge are making a go of it. That is until Lord Bainbridge—the widowed Gwen's father-in-law and legal guardian—returns from a business trip to Africa and threatens to undo everything important to her, even sending her six-year-old son away to a boarding school.

But there's more going on than that. A new client shows up at the agency, one whom Sparks and Bainbridge begin to suspect really has a secret agenda, somehow involving the Bainbridge family. A murder and a subsequent kidnapping sends Sparks to seek help from a dangerous quarter—and now their very survival is at stake.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250750327
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	06/08/2021
Series:	Sparks & Bainbridge Series , #3
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

ALLISON MONTCLAIR grew up devouring hand-me-down Agatha Christie paperbacks and James Bond movies. As a result of this deplorable upbringing, Montclair became addicted to tales of crime, intrigue, and espionage. She now spends her spare time poking through the corners, nooks, and crannies of history, searching for the odd mysterious bits and transforming them into novels of her own. The Right Sort of Man is her debut novel.

Editorial Reviews

★ 04/05/2021

An artfully constructed puzzle and dry humor lift Montclair’s excellent third mystery featuring professional matchmakers and amateur sleuths Iris Sparks and Gwen Bainbridge in post-WWII London (after 2020’s A Royal Affair). The Right Sort Marriage Bureau gets its first client of color in the form of Simon Daile, a native of Nyasaland, a British colony where Gwen’s father-in-law owns plantations. Simon came to England years before to study advanced agricultural techniques that he could then share with his countrymen. The war derailed his plans, and Simon, who lacks the funds to continue his education, intends to settle down in England with his white spouse, who shares his Christian faith and openness to travel. Gwen believes Simon hasn’t been honest with them, a suspicion enhanced after she gets evidence that he’s been stalking her. The subsequent shooting murder of an unidentified African and an abduction that strikes close to home raise the stakes. Montclair’s feisty leads continue to develop as psychologically plausible characters. Phryne Fisher devotees will clamor for more. (June)

Publishers Weekly

2021-01-27
A genteel war widow and her street-wise business partner far exceed their modest job descriptions in their third postwar outing.

Gwendolyn Bainbridge has a fight on her hands to regain custody of her son, Ronnie, from the firm grip of her domineering father-in-law, Lord Harold Bainbridge. Her recent stay in a sanatorium after she lost her husband in World War II has labeled her an unfit parent even though she and her friend Iris Sparks have enjoyed success in operating The Right Sort Marriage Bureau. Running an expanding business and taking martial arts classes give Gwen a greater sense of control in her battles with Lord Bainbridge, and Iris, a former counterintelligence operative a little too fond of the bottle, supplies both much-needed pep talks and hard-won perspective. But then Gwen discovers that her late husband’s share—now hers—of her father-in-law’s copper and munitions business is also under Lord Bainbridge’s thumb. A mysterious Right Sort client with more on his mind than finding a bride, a dead body near the dust bins behind Bainbridge’s exclusive men’s club, and Gwen’s unintended interruption of a nefarious scheme call on her wits, her newfound skills, and Iris’ shady but effective gallery of friends.

From the drawing room to the back alley, murder is no match for this unlikely pair of marriage brokers.

Kirkus Reviews

"Absorbing and affecting... a series that grows better and richer with each book." —Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star

"Excellent." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A saucy and witty romp...with an ear for characters’ unique lingo and language and an eye for period detail, Montclair’s Rogue is spot on." —Historical Novel Society

"...ably captures the relief of the postwar era in the fast-paced and funny A Rogue's Company, as those who survived the Blitz and the battles try to put their lives back together...Readers of Ashley Weaver or Rhys Bowen are sure to adore the adventures of Sparks & Bainbridge." —Shelf Awareness

"From the drawing room to the back alley, murder is no match for this unlikely pair of marriage brokers." —Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher