Lady Hardcastle Books in Order, a T.E. Kinsey series (2024)

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Written by murder mystery writer Tim Kinsey, the Lady Hardcastle series takes us back to the start of the 20th century for some sleuthing. Born Emily Charlotte Ariadne Featherstonhaugh, Lady Emily Hardcastle is now an eccentric widow but mostly a retired spy turned amateur sleuth. With the help of Florence Armstrong, her maid and confidante who is also an expert in martial arts, she always finds a crime to investigate.

How to read the Lady Hardcastle Series in Order?

Every entry in the Lady Hardcastle book series works as a standalone story, but the lives of the different characters evolve from one novel to the other.

1. A Quiet Life In The Country – The year is 1908 and Lady Emily Hardcastle and Florence Armstrong, her maid and confidante, have just moved from London to the country, hoping for a quiet life. But it is not long before Lady Hardcastle is forced out of her self-imposed retirement. There’s a dead body in the woods, and the police are on the wrong scent. Lady Hardcastle makes some inquiries of her own, and it seems she knows a surprising amount about crime investigation…
2. In the Market for Murder – Spring, 1909, Lady Hardcastle is enjoying a well-deserved rest. But a week after a trip to the cattle market, Spencer Caradine, a local farmer, turns up dead in the pub, face-down in his beef and mushroom pie. Once again, it is up to Lady Hardcastle and her maid, Florence, to solve the case. Armed with wit and whimsy, not to mention Florence’s mean right hook, the pair set out to discover what really happened and why. Was it poison or just ill luck?
3. Death Around the Bend – September 1909, Lady Hardcastle and her maid, Florence, have been invited to Lord Riddlethorpe’s country estate for a week of motor racing and parties. They both agree that it sounds like a perfectly charming holiday. But when one of the drivers dies in a crash during the very first race, they discover that what seemed like an uncharacteristic error in judgment may have a more sinister explanation…
4. Christmas at The Grange (short story) – It’s Christmas 1909, and for once Lady Hardcastle and her lady’s maid, Florence Armstrong, are setting sleuthing aside. They are invited to the festivities up at The Grange, as guests of Sir Hector and Lady Farley-Stroud. But barely have corks been popped and parlor games played when a mysterious crime comes to light.

5. A Picture of Murder – Late October 1909, the season of ghouls and things that go bump in the night has descended on the village of Littleton Cotterell. Lady Hardcastle and her trusted lady’s maid, Florence, find themselves hosting a colorful cast of actors whose spooky moving picture, The Witch’s Downfall, is being shown to mark Halloween. But things take a macabre turn when the first night’s screening ends with a mysterious murder, and the second night with another…One by one the actors turn up dead in ways that eerily echo their film.
6. The Burning Issue of the Day – January 1910. A journalist has been killed in a suspicious blaze. Everything points to a group of suffragettes, but the apparent culprit insists she is innocent. When Lady Hardcastle receives a letter from a suffragette requesting her urgent help, she knows only she stands between an accused young woman and the gallows. Evidence at the scene makes Lizzie Worrel’s innocence difficult to believe, and with the police treating it as an open-and-shut case of arson, Lady Hardcastle faces a barrage of resistance as she tries to dig out the truth.
7. Death Beside the Seaside – July 1910. Lady Hardcastle and her tireless sidekick Flo have finally embarked on a long-overdue seaside break. But just as they’re wavering between ice creams and donkey rides, their fellow guests start to go missing–and the duo finds themselves with a hysterical hotel manager and a case to solve.

8. The Fatal Flying Affair – August 1911. Emily Hardcastle and her inimitable lady’s maid Florence Armstrong are enjoying a fine summer until Harry, Lady H’s brother, turns up out of the blue with a mystery for them to solve. A routine parachute test at a local aeroplane factory has gone horribly wrong-with pilot Dickie Dupree plummeting to his death. Harry is certain there is more to this ‘tragic accident’ than meets the eye, having discovered that someone at the airfield is leaking top secret intelligence to foreign rivals.
9. Rotten to the Core – Summer 1911. A scorching heatwave engulfs the quiet town of Littleton Cotterell and brings about an unusually early harvest. The villagers are thrilled, but events quickly turn sour when one of them turns up dead in an apple orchard, stabbed through the heart. Amateur sleuth Lady Hardcastle and her trusty lady’s maid, Flo, suddenly have a juicy case on their hands. Might the mysterious stranger they recently met in the village be to blame?
10. An Act of Foul Play – November 1911. Lady Emily Hardcastle is celebrating her birthday by seeing a play at the Duke’s Theatre in Bristol with her maid and confidante, the inimitable Flo. Act One is a triumph. Then Act Two opens with a body on stage-a real one. One of the cast has been brutally murdered during the interval.

11. A Fire at the Exhibition – May 1912. After the previous year’s deadly heatwave, it’s been an uneventful spring in Littleton Cotterell. Though for Lady Hardcastle and her fiercely loyal lady’s maid Flo, at least there are the provincial delights of the village’s inaugural art exhibition-and bicycle race-to look forward to. But at the exhibition opening, there’s a panicked shout of ‘Fire!’ In the confusion, the main attraction-an extremely expensive book-is stolen from under everyone’s nose, as is a valuable painting lent by Sir Hector Farley-Stroud. Then the race, which starts as a charming day out, ends in a shocking death. And to top it all off, the Farley-Strouds reveal they’re in debt and might lose their house.
12. An Assassination on the Agenda – July 1912. Lady Hardcastle and her tenacious lady’s maid, Florence Armstrong, are enjoying a convivial gathering at the home of their dear friends, the Farley-Strouds. The only fly in the idyllic ointment seems to be the lack of musical entertainment for the forthcoming summer party―until, that is, Lady Hardcastle’s brother Harry calls with news of a murder. Harry dispatches them to Bristol on behalf of the Secret Service Bureau, with instructions to prevent the local police from uncovering too much about the victim. It seems an intriguing mystery―all the more so when they find a connection between the killer and an impending visit from an Austrian trade delegation, set to feature a very important guest…

If you like our article about the Lady Hardcastle reading order, don’t forget to bookmark it! If you like Lady Hardcastle, you may also want to see our Lady Sherlock reading order, or our guide to Deanna Raybourn’s Lady Julia Grey series.