Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
The Lady Grace Mysteries: Deception
Historical Fiction Series
For ages 10 and up
Random House UK, 2005 ISBN: 978-0385608497
The River Thames has frozen and Londoners are greatly enjoying the novelty of being able to walk across the river that flows through their city. Lady Grace Cavendish and the other Maids of Honour are delighted to be able to go to the Frost Fair which has been set up on the ice. At least they are until a body is discovered in a boat. Lady Grace, being a curious sort of young woman, cannot help going to look at the body and she discovers that coins have been placed over the eyes of the dead man. When she sees the coins she knows that something is very wrong because the coins are exactly like the ones that Queen Elizabeth is having made. The thing is, the new coins are not in circulation yet so who put the coins on the body and how did the killer come by them?
Grace soon finds herself trying to unravel the mystery of the coins. Somehow she has to find out where the coins came from for it turns out that they are counterfeit and if other coins like the ones on the body are put into circulation, the real coins will be devalued. The financial well being of the very Kingdom is at stake.
With her good friends Ellie and Masou to help her, and with Queen Elizabeth's support Lady Grace puts her very life at risk to solve this gripping and superbly written mystery.
The court of Queen Elizabeth and life in Elizabethan England is wonderfully portrayed in this fourth novel in the Lady Grace Cavendish mystery series.
