Loch Down Abbey by Beth Cowan Erskine

The 1930s and set in a town in Scotland, the story surrounds the inhabitants of the local aristocracy and they are a callous, strange lot. A disease is striking Scotland and people are falling down like ninepins but all they are concerned with is of the inconvenience of looking after the children after Nanny has so inconsiderably fallen down dead and now staff are falling sick. The possibility of even considering making their own beds, reducing the number of trips that maids have to take to bring and take tea trays and the horror of reducing the number of cakes at tea from six to three are some of the major problems faced by this family. The head housekeeper is the only sane being in the lot and when the Lord of this manor is found dead, she is the only one concerned enough to do some private sleuthing because something does smell rotten. No one else is bothered. Since no one is allowed in or out of the house due to the illness sweeping the village it is apparent that the suspected murderer is one of their own. Unravelling the mystery with no help from the family and still having to run the house with no apparent shortcomings is a herculean task. The true color of the relations come to the fore with the death of the Lord especially when his will is read and the skeletons come out of the cupboard. The family is facing bankruptcy and the sale of the manor is the only way out, something that most of them cannot get their heads around and their hearts to accept. Tongue in cheek British humour at its best, the bunch of characters are so varied that the mix of them is what is best in the story. Sent by Hodder & Stoughton for an unbiased review, courtesy of Netgalley.