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Jennie Redhead Mystery #3
Daughters of Darkness
Private investigator Jennie Redhead is hired to investigate a murder that's left the police baffled, in this gripping historical mystery set partly in 1970's Oxford and partly in war-torn 1940's London.
Oxford, 1975. Three years ago, world-renowned anthropologist Grace Stockton was slain in a brutal, unprovoked attack. Despite a large-scale police investigation, the identity of the prime suspect was never uncovered... and neither was the location of Grace's head. But Grace's daughter, the wealthy academic Julia Pemberton, refuses to accept that the trail has run cold. Determined to find out who killed her mother, she knows just the woman for the private investigator Jennie Redhead. Who was the woman caught on CCTV visiting Grace's isolated home on the day of the murder? And why did she cut off her victim's head?
Jennie's search for answers takes her on a dark, disturbing journey into the past, from the ancient tribal customs of Papua New Guinea, to war-torn 1940's London, and to a dark tangle of secrets and scandal that someone is desperate should never be revealed...
Oxford, 1975. Three years ago, world-renowned anthropologist Grace Stockton was slain in a brutal, unprovoked attack. Despite a large-scale police investigation, the identity of the prime suspect was never uncovered... and neither was the location of Grace's head. But Grace's daughter, the wealthy academic Julia Pemberton, refuses to accept that the trail has run cold. Determined to find out who killed her mother, she knows just the woman for the private investigator Jennie Redhead. Who was the woman caught on CCTV visiting Grace's isolated home on the day of the murder? And why did she cut off her victim's head?
Jennie's search for answers takes her on a dark, disturbing journey into the past, from the ancient tribal customs of Papua New Guinea, to war-torn 1940's London, and to a dark tangle of secrets and scandal that someone is desperate should never be revealed...
224 pages, Hardcover
Published July 2, 2020
About the author
Sally Spencer
122 books154 followersA pseudonym used by Alan Rustage.
Sally Spencer is a pen name, first adopted when the author (actually called Alan Rustage) was writing sagas and it was almost obligatory that a woman's name appeared on the cover (other authors like Emma Blair and Mary Jane Staples are also men).
Before becoming a full-time writer, he was a teacher. In 1978-79 he was working in Iran and witnessed the fall of the Shah (see the Blog for what it was like to live through a revolution). He got used to having rifles - and, one occasion, a rocket launcher - pointed at him by both soldiers and revolutionaries, but he was never entirely comfortable with it.
He lived in Madrid for over twenty years, and still considers it the most interesting and exciting city he has ever visited, but for the last few years he has opted for a quieter life in the seaside town of Calpe, on the Costa Blanca.
His first series of books were historical sagas set in Cheshire (where he grew up) and London. They were very popular with his English readers, but his American readers find the dialect something of a strain.
He has written twenty books featuring DCI Woodend (a character based partly on a furniture dealer he used to play dominoes with) and ten (so far!) about Woodend's protegé Monika Paniatowski.
His DI Sam Blackstone books are set in Victorian/Edwardian London, New York and Russia, and the Inspector Paco Ruiz books have as their backdrop the Spanish Civil War.
Alan is a competitive games player who likes bridge and pub quizzes. It is only by enforcing iron discipline that he doesn't play video games all the time.
He now lives on Spain's Costa Blanca.
Sally Spencer is a pen name, first adopted when the author (actually called Alan Rustage) was writing sagas and it was almost obligatory that a woman's name appeared on the cover (other authors like Emma Blair and Mary Jane Staples are also men).
Before becoming a full-time writer, he was a teacher. In 1978-79 he was working in Iran and witnessed the fall of the Shah (see the Blog for what it was like to live through a revolution). He got used to having rifles - and, one occasion, a rocket launcher - pointed at him by both soldiers and revolutionaries, but he was never entirely comfortable with it.
He lived in Madrid for over twenty years, and still considers it the most interesting and exciting city he has ever visited, but for the last few years he has opted for a quieter life in the seaside town of Calpe, on the Costa Blanca.
His first series of books were historical sagas set in Cheshire (where he grew up) and London. They were very popular with his English readers, but his American readers find the dialect something of a strain.
He has written twenty books featuring DCI Woodend (a character based partly on a furniture dealer he used to play dominoes with) and ten (so far!) about Woodend's protegé Monika Paniatowski.
His DI Sam Blackstone books are set in Victorian/Edwardian London, New York and Russia, and the Inspector Paco Ruiz books have as their backdrop the Spanish Civil War.
Alan is a competitive games player who likes bridge and pub quizzes. It is only by enforcing iron discipline that he doesn't play video games all the time.
He now lives on Spain's Costa Blanca.
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
January 6, 2022
Superb. A wowza. The police force can not solve the crime. So 20+ years later the daughter of the murdered woman asks a private detective to look into the case. She does. Successfully.
Now I am a Sally Spencer fan.
Unputdownable.
Now I am a Sally Spencer fan.
Unputdownable.
September 7, 2020
I liked it !!! It looks like there’s two other books in the series before this one but I can’t seem to find them on Goodreads?
July 1, 2020
224 pages
3 stars
This book moves awfully slowly. I was almost fifty per cent through the book when it finally picked up.
I did not like the character of Jennie Redhead. I tried to give her some leeway due to the book's setting was 1972, but I found her attitude irritating and not a little superior. I'm not sure she had a charitable bone in her body. When I dislike the main character, I seem to lose all interest in the book. I just couldn't get past that. I found Grace's childhood both interesting and tragic. Especially after what happened later. The story premise was interesting. I particularly thought that the title of the novel was apt. The writing was very good, as was the plotting. The book dragged for me because it moved so slowly, but one event followed another in a logical progression.
I want to thank NetGalley and Severn House Publishers for forwarding to me a copy of this good book for me to read and review.
3 stars
This book moves awfully slowly. I was almost fifty per cent through the book when it finally picked up.
I did not like the character of Jennie Redhead. I tried to give her some leeway due to the book's setting was 1972, but I found her attitude irritating and not a little superior. I'm not sure she had a charitable bone in her body. When I dislike the main character, I seem to lose all interest in the book. I just couldn't get past that. I found Grace's childhood both interesting and tragic. Especially after what happened later. The story premise was interesting. I particularly thought that the title of the novel was apt. The writing was very good, as was the plotting. The book dragged for me because it moved so slowly, but one event followed another in a logical progression.
I want to thank NetGalley and Severn House Publishers for forwarding to me a copy of this good book for me to read and review.
May 25, 2020
Former police officer Jennie Redhead is now plying her trade as a private investigator in 1975 based in Oxford. She is approached by Julie Pemberton (who has friends in high places) to investigate the death of her mother (Grace Stockton) who was a renowned anthropologist who was murdered 3 years previously. Police investigations had been defeated in their efforts to track down the murderer despite having a very bad image from a CCTV camera of a woman who is of interest in their investigations.
The action is split into two time periods – current in the 1970’s and war torn London in 1940’s.
Jennie Redhead is a very interesting, comic, character. She has a propensity for Gin and Tonic and a wry sense of humour, but more interestingly, a keen sense of intuition. She is a fabulous character and I suspect we might run into her again. The plot is well-developed and smacks of nostalgia – not quite the Golden Age of Detectives, but something very similar. A time when hats were worn and a certain code of conduct was not only expected but encountered.
Despite my initial doubts this turned into a really interesting, unexpected detective story, with a unique quirky detective. Very satisfying read indeed.
Thank you to the author, publishers and NetGalley for providing an ARC via my Kindle in return for an honest review.
The action is split into two time periods – current in the 1970’s and war torn London in 1940’s.
Jennie Redhead is a very interesting, comic, character. She has a propensity for Gin and Tonic and a wry sense of humour, but more interestingly, a keen sense of intuition. She is a fabulous character and I suspect we might run into her again. The plot is well-developed and smacks of nostalgia – not quite the Golden Age of Detectives, but something very similar. A time when hats were worn and a certain code of conduct was not only expected but encountered.
Despite my initial doubts this turned into a really interesting, unexpected detective story, with a unique quirky detective. Very satisfying read indeed.
Thank you to the author, publishers and NetGalley for providing an ARC via my Kindle in return for an honest review.
May 26, 2020
Thank you NetGalley and Severn House for the eARC.
This was the best Sally Spencer book I've read, I loved it and couldn't put it down.
It takes place in London and Oxford and London during WWII and 1975. P.I. Jennie Redhead is asked to find out who murdered and decapitated (the head has never been found) Dr. Grace Stockton, a world-renowned anthropologist, by her daughter.
Dr. Stockton was raised in New Guinea, Papua and the story includes some fascinating tribal cultural facts. It also gives you a real feel for the horrendous doodlebug attacks the German Luftwaffe rained down on London and the affect it had on its citizens.
Jennie is a great character and the mystery itself is almost impossible to solve, but she gets there in the end and what a great ending it is! Super read that I highly recommend!
This was the best Sally Spencer book I've read, I loved it and couldn't put it down.
It takes place in London and Oxford and London during WWII and 1975. P.I. Jennie Redhead is asked to find out who murdered and decapitated (the head has never been found) Dr. Grace Stockton, a world-renowned anthropologist, by her daughter.
Dr. Stockton was raised in New Guinea, Papua and the story includes some fascinating tribal cultural facts. It also gives you a real feel for the horrendous doodlebug attacks the German Luftwaffe rained down on London and the affect it had on its citizens.
Jennie is a great character and the mystery itself is almost impossible to solve, but she gets there in the end and what a great ending it is! Super read that I highly recommend!
September 7, 2020
PI Jennifer Redhead's years at Oxford left the working-class ex-cop from the north of England with a profound distaste for anyone posh or snobbish. So at first the private detective isn't inclined to accept a commission from Cambridge physicist Julia Pemberton to find her mother's killer. But to take pressure off her lover, DCI Ken Macintosh of the Thames Valley police, Jennie agrees to look into the cold case. She knows Julia's parents are Oxford academics: Dr. Derek Stockton a rather prosaic professor of religion, and Dr. Grace Stockton a somewhat less conventional anthropologist, whose early years growing up in Papua New Guinea marked her more deeply than even her husband realized. Still, it was not her earliest years but a relationship with a down-and-outer named Jane that developed when both were young mothers during the World War II bombings of London that lays the foundation for Grace's tragic end. A complex tale of good people who make bad decisions for reasons even they don't completely understand. One of the best mysteries I've read in 2020.
June 27, 2020
Grace Stockton was murdered- decapitated in 1972. Her head has never been found. The case flummoxed the police and her daughter Julia has now, in 1975, hired Jennie Redhead to find out what happened. Grace spent a large portion of her life in Papua New Guinea and was an anthropologist- and this figures into the answer. As does something that happened in London during WWII. Spencer does an especially good job with the atmospherics during that time frame. This is an unusual and twisty tale with a good protagonist in Jennie. She's smart, she's got a mouth on her, and she's a digger. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A good read.
June 9, 2020
I was really thrilled when I had a chance to read the latest book of the Redhead’s series. Jennie did not disappoint for she was her usual quirky self. She managed to solve a mysterious unsolved murder that had its’ inception back to 1944. She managed this with the help of some interesting characters. If you have never read a Sally Spencer novel, you will be captivated by her unconventional characters and story lines.
Thank you Netgalley and Severn House for this ARC.
Thank you Netgalley and Severn House for this ARC.
July 9, 2020
This is the first book I read by this author and won't surely be the last as it's a gripping and entertaining read.
The mystery is solid and kept me guessing, the plot is full of twists and turns, the characters are fleshed out and interesting.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.
The mystery is solid and kept me guessing, the plot is full of twists and turns, the characters are fleshed out and interesting.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.
February 21, 2021
I was expecting witches and animal sacrifices, but the closest we got to that was a headless body .. decapitated. It is, nevertheless, and intriguing tale. I guessed the ending about half-way through, but I was only half right. Go read it!
May 29, 2021
I had forgotten about this author but am very happy to have rediscovered her with this book. The cover art is very intriguing and the story no less so. I am keen to read the rest of the Jennie Redhead series as this one was not the first .
May 25, 2021
Not the best murder mystery I ever read.
December 6, 2022
This is a very interesting tragic tale.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews