Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
The Lady Grace Mysteries: Keys
Fiction Series
For ages 10 and up
Random House UK, 2009 ISBN: 978-1862304215
Lady Grace Cavendish is delighted to back at Hampton Court. The palace with its extensive gardens has always been one of her favorite places to stay, and as soon as she gets the chance she finds a way to go outside so that she, and her maid Ellie, can climb a tree together. Some people might think that a young lady of fifteen shouldn’t indulge in tree climbing, but Grace doesn’t care what people think.
On their way back indoors, the two girls accidentally stumble across something that ends up upsetting life in court; they find the Queen’s clockmaker, Mr. Urseau, lying on the floor of his workshop with a knife sticking out of his chest. Mr. Urseau’s apprentice is by his poor master’s side, and since no one else was seen leaving the workshop, the young man is instantly accused of being Mr. Urseau’s murderer.
Though the evidence seems incontrovertible, Grace cannot help feeling sorry for the young man. What if he wasn’t the killer, and what if the real killer is still out there? Surely it is her job as the queen’s Lady Pursuivant (her spy) to make sure that the right person is punished for the terrible crime.
This is the eleventh title in the Lady Grace Cavendish series, and it is just as interesting and entertaining as the other books in the collection. The authors of this book beautifully weave fact and fiction together, giving their readers a gripping mystery that needs to be solved, and intimate details about what it would have been like to live in the court of Queen Elizabeth I of England.
