Murder at Enderley Hall by Helena Dixon

In the first book of the series, Kitty Underhay discovered that she had more family than she knew. Now, she's been invited to go visit. And the family lives in a grand estate and have several people other than Kitty visiting. Kitty meets many of them on the first day, including Nanny Thomas who was her cousin Lucy's nanny and is now companion to Kitty's aunt. She is a dithery sort of old woman who is ruthlessly bullied by the lady of the house. But she doesn't know much of anything about anything. So why, after a set of papers relating to the Ministry of Defence go missing, is Nanny the one who ends up dead?
Kitty calls Captain Matthew Bryant, who now has his own investigative agency, to come down and investigate. He is able to come down to help her figure out exactly what is going on.
It took a bit for me to get into this book and I wish there had been more development between Kitty and Matt. Also, the ending was a bit flat but overall a nice book that, when it moved, moved quickly and I'm looking forward to the next.

Four stars
Follows Murder at the Dolphin Hotel
This book came out March 19th
ARC kindly provided by Bookouture and NetGalley
Opinions are my own

Murder at the Dolphin Hotel by Helena Dixon

Kitty Underhay's mother disappeared when she was five; her father was gone even before then. She grew up with her grandmother at the Dolphin Hotel. During the summer of 1933, Kitty's great-aunt is ill so her grandmother travels to be with her leaving Kitty and the regular staff to run the hotel. Also present will be the new security officer, Matthew Bryant.  He was a captain in the military and trained to help protect.
Why a new security officer? Kitty doesn't know this but her grandmother has been receiving threatening letters. They imply that there is something valuable at the hotel and the sender wants it back. And there's a mysterious death. Then another. It's up to Kitty to figure out what's going on.
I liked the character development and forgave a little bit of shallowness for this being a first book but I also felt like the story was well built out. There were people thrown in at the end that weren't even well-disguised red herrings. Connections between characters magically appeared. And while the book started off strong, there was some time in the middle that I had to force myself to pick up the book to keep going. I hope that some of these things (story, character building, pacing) will be worked out in the next book in the series.

Three stars
Followed by Murder at Enderly Hall
This book came out December 11th
ARC kindly provided by Bookouture and NetGalley
Opinions are my own