A FRONT-PAGE MURDER (Poppy Denby Investigates Book 1) by Fiona Veitch Smith will be rereleased on September 24, 2024, by Bonnier Books UK. The novel was previously published as THE JAZZ FILES on November 27, 2015, by Lion Fiction.
After moving from Northumberland to London to live with her paraplegic aunt, Poppy Denby gets a job as an editorial assistant at the Daily Globe. It might not be the journalistic career she’d always dreamed of since she was a little girl, but it is a start. During her second day on the job, one of Poppy’s new coworkers falls to his death from one of the upper floors. Convinced that the report was pushed, Poppy starts looking into the story that Bert was working on when he died—the death of a British suffragette several years earlier. Poppy’s aunt Dot not only knew the dead suffragette but was close friends with her. With Dot’s help, Poppy can dig deeper into the woman’s death as well as other incidents surrounding the suffragist movement. Poppy’s investigation takes her back into the past, and from a mental institution all the way to Marie Curie’s radium laboratory in Paris.
A FRONT-PAGE MURDER was an interesting read. I enjoyed learning more about the suffragist movement in Britain. There was a lot going on in the novel, and the plot moved quickly. Certain aspects of the story called for the suspension of disbelief, and that detracted from the story at times. Poppy is very naïve, and that got her into trouble. Otherwise, she is a likable character. Hopefully, she matures as the series progresses. I’m also interested in learning more about Aunt Dot’s history.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.