An enjoyable murder mystery set in 1945 in a girls' boarding school. Annabel Warnock, one of the teachers at the school has disappeared. Everyone including the police, believe that she has just left without telling anyone but Annabel herself knows she has been murdered and wants to know who did it. The story is narrated by the victim herself and is an unusual and quirky version of an Agatha Christie type mystery. There's plenty of action and suspects with some interesting twists in the tale.
This is a light, quick and entertaining read.

*Many thanks to HarperCollins UK who invited me to read this new offering by Andrew Taylor.*
I follow Mr Taylor's historical series so this standalone book set in 1945 was a total change and surprise but quite enjoyable, as it turned out. I would argue that the main çharacter' in this book is the boarding school which operates on the grounds on the estate left by its owners before WW2. Monkshill School and its surroundings are the remains of a vast estate modelled two hundred years earlier by its owners. With the help of landscape designers, the grounds offered amazing views and walks featuring the gothic feel, so much in vogue in that period. If you add the main protagonist who attempts to solve her murder from beyond, you receive an enjoyable mix that will hold your attention throughout. And I believe the opening sentence stands the chance to be included in the famous openings of novels.

After a fantastic series of Marwood and Lovett novels Andrew Taylor has returned to a stand-alone novel. It is set in a girls’ boarding school in 1945 and the narrator is trying to solve the mystery of her own death. Everyone presumes she has just disappeared for reasons of her own and not returned after the school holidays so nobody is looking for her. There are so many possible suspects - pupils, teachers and staff - and none of them are very sympathetic characters so it really could be almost any one of them. A new replacement teacher, Mr Shaw, is drawn into the late Miss Warnock’s quest for the truth but like many others there he also has secrets. When the murderer is finally revealed it doesn’t come as a big surprise but the journey to the truth is intriguing.
Taylor has put a ghostly twist on the classic whodunnit which makes the novel more interesting. I didn’t find it as enjoyable as some of his previous stand-alones but it is worth reading.
Thank you to the publishers for the ARC.

Set in a girl's boarding school after the war, a restless ghost is trying to find out who murdered her. It's funny in parts, almost St Trinians-like- and disturbing in others. All is not what it seems under the veneer of respectability. Unusual and very enjoyable.

Well, this was a brilliant read! I rarely like a first-person narrative, but this book had me hooked from the start.

Miss Warnock is missing. She's upped sticks and left Monkshill School without a mistress, but what the school doesn't know is that Miss Warnock is dead, pushed from The Gothick Walk to her doom....

Annabel / Miss Warnock's ghost, though, remains at Monkshill, and she guides us around the school, introducing us to the characters and discovers not all is as it seems in this dilapidated country estate.

Nobody can hear her, she can't tell people what happened to her! Until a new teacher arrives, and then the game is afoot, but there are more mysteries than Annabels murder to solve...

A very clever country house mystery that has a supernatural spin added to it by a very clever author (who seems able to turn his hand to any genre)

A brilliant update on the period classic country house mystery!

Also, in true Golden Age Crime books, we are treated to a delightful map of the estate at the start of the book! It's an absolute winner for me!!

I love Andrew Taylor's writing, but this is possibly my favorite of his books, given that it's a beautifully written tribute to one of my favorite genres. The story is set in a girl's boarding school, a perfect place for a 'locked room type mystery and the novel itself is narrated by the victim. In less skilled hands this could have been twee but Taylor's obvious respect for the genre, coupled with clever depictions of the ghost's limitations, makes it a success. I have to admit I guessed who dunnit, but not why, and the pleasure of reading the book was not diminished.

This unusual crime story is set in a second-rate boarding school for girls in the 1940s, where both staff and students have their own personal secrets, deceptions and miseries and where everyday life is a struggle. The narrator is Annabel Warnock, the ghost of one of the teachers who has been pushed over a cliff edge and her body swept out to sea, leaving her colleagues assuming she has just left gone off on holiday and not bothered to return. Annabel is trapped at the school and determines to find out who her killer is, but there are all too many possible suspects who wanted her gone and who have things to hide. The device used for Annabel to communicate with another teacher is a bit contrived and annoying, but the slow piecing together of clues builds quite nicely and it is hard to guess what happened until late in the plot. Taylor’s great strength is his portrayal of an England slowly recovering from war, a way of life that is changing forever and a class system that is crumbling. All the characters are struggling in some way, yet try to keep up an outward facade of what they think is required of them, and there is a sense that there could be a brighter future if they can put behind them old grudges and rigid ways and take a step forward. Although there is a sense of melancholy and loss, there are also glimmers of hope, especially for the younger characters.

No not for me, tried to absorb this but it just didn't captivate me, did I give up too soon? Read 30% but didn't find a path through this.

I’m a huge fan of everything Andrew Taylor has written however was a bit concerned about the change in direction in this book. I needn’t have been at all, it’s a fantastic read. There is light humour all the way through, lots of different characters doing lots of dastardly deeds, some horrible children as well too to add to the mix Our ghostly heroine tracks down her killer eventually (I thought she was a bit slow to cotton on!)

Altogether a great read and a happy 5* recommendation

Thank you to Netgalley the author and publishers for an arc in exchange for an honest review

I am a big Andrew Taylor fan - just so you’re aware, so I was very excited to receive a copy of this book.

Once again, I was swept into the story. Andrew really does write exceptionally well, and for me this murder mystery was unputdownable. Our main character is a ghost - which was a first for me, and it did take me a few page turns back and forth to clock this (but this is me I think!). Once I’d clocked it though, it all fell into place. I loved Annabel, and really, all of them (mean or not!), and I was a clueless as her as to who killer her.

This book keeps you guessing right upto the end, and I was shook!

Really loved it!

My thanks to Netgalley and Harper Fiction for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

This mystery is set towards the end of the Second World War and at a girls’ only school. Annabel Warnock, a recently appointed teacher, left the school for the holidays and never came back. It is assumed that she just walked away but in reality she fell from a viewpoint on the cliff top Gothic Walk and was washed to sea. Her spirit is however trapped at the school and must find some way of investigating who wanted her dead and why.

She finds that everyone harbours secrets and tensions abound.

I was absorbed by the story as we learnt more about the pupils and staff influenced by Annabel - their motivations, secrets, resentments and possible motives for murder.

Gradually clues emerge and Annabel is finally able to put a face to her murderer and assign a motive.

Unusually, this review has to start with some well-meaning advice to anyone thinking of reading this book, so here goes: if you’re tempted to give up after the first chapters, don’t! Hang in there and it will begin to make some crazy sense in an entertaining kind of way. Certainly, the basic premise of the plot (narrated by the ghost of the murder victim who invisibly ‘inhabits’ the school and grounds where the murder took place) requires a deep breath and a determined suspension of disbelief. However, some very skilful writing and a narrative that keeps the reader guessing with a liberal sprinkling of potential suspects for the murder that is the central feature of the story help to keep the reader engaged.
Andrew Taylor has borrowed plot elements from a range of murder mysteries (the closing years of WW2, a girls’ boarding school) are but has woven them together in a neat synthesis that seems to work within the somewhat surreal unfolding of this entertaining plot.

Recommended

I really tried with this book. I kept going back to it and trying again, but it just didn't hold my attention for more than a few minutes at a time, so at 52%, I had to give in and give up.

It's a tale that by the premise had me really interested, but when reading, I found the mundane goings on and the life of the staff and students at the school just overly boring.

Narrated by the ghost of murdered teacher Miss Annabelle Warnock, the story is based around finding out who killed her. Lots of suspicions, lots of suspects, lots of guesswork...

Unfortunately, this one just wasn't for me. While I could have persevered, life is way too short to be reading books that don't bring me joy!

Thanks to Netgalley and Harper Collins UK for the ARC.

A really engaging 'whodunnit' where the narrator is the ghost of the victim seeking to discover who killed her. In the enclosed world of a girls' boarding school at the end of the Second World War, it is humorous and has lots of references to Agatha Christie and Dorothy L Sayers. The red herrings come thick and fast and it had me guessing right to the end. I think this is a great gift for Christmas for everyone, if you are stuck for a gift for the person who has everything, buy them this, they will not be disappointed. I loved it.

A Schooling in Murder by Andrew Tate.

This was such an unusual book. It opened like any murder mystery but I was soon engaged by the atypical viewpoint. Annabel has been murdered and it is her ghost who is telling the story. We become involved with the tensions and relationships in a school for girls, many of whom seem lost and lonely. It is no different for the staff - especially the new teacher who is, of all things, a man, catapulted into the boiling pot of characters. I enjoyed the unfurling of the school girls as we found out more about them. The central mystery is enjoyably twisty and the setting, at the end of WW2, made an interesting backdrop. I highly recommend this book for lovers of detective fiction and school stories. Thanks to Harper Collins and to NetGalley for a copy in return for an honest review.

A Schooling in Murder by Andrew Taylor due for publication 5 June 2025

Having thoroughly enjoyed Andrew Taylor's Cat Lovett and James Marwood novels I was not sure what to make of this stand alone tale. It took me a while to get into it and I had to re read the beginning as I was confused over who was who and what was going on (even with the character list at the beginning). I did not warm to any of the characters even the more sympathetic ones most were thoroughly unlikeable.

There were many layers to this mystery with several characters trying to get to the bottom of the mysterious disappearance of Annabel. After thinking so many of the characters could have been responsible for Ananabel's death the ending was a shock and totally unexpected.

So although I can't say it was a great read for me it was worth perservering.

Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy.

A Schooling in Murder by Andrew Taylor is narrated by the ghost of Annabel Warnock, a teacher who has been murdered at a residential girls' school near Gloucester at the end of the Second World War. It details the mundane and rather boring life of both pupils and staff at the school whilst slowly revealing the number of suspects who might have had the motive to murder Miss Warnock.

Much as I have enjoyed reading all of Andrew Taylor's Marwood and Lovett historical novels, regrettably I didn't much like the concept of the book and found it rather dull and depressing.

I am sorry but I can’t get through this book. I keep trying again but failing.
Not for me!
I find the requirements to write a 100 words when wishing to send negative feedback is unnecessary??

I wasn't really sure what to make of it to be first. It took a while to get going, and I found it hard to connect or care about any of the characters at first. This is very much a slow burn, but as the mystery deepened and we peeled back the layers of all the characters, they started to grow on me.

There was repetition here, moments when we seemed to be looping, having the same thought or conversation again and again, which was slightly annoying, but by and large it flowed okay. Having multiple people exploring multiple possibilities at once, and being able to see both sides of the importance of something, whereas the characters didn't, was the best sort of frustration.

The book captured the atmosphere of the period perfectly. People desperate for news of loved ones in the war, the fact that Germany may have surrendered but it was still going on - the misery of war rations and the brief moments of normality that cut through the gloom. All fantastic.

The twist at the end was great. There were moments throughout the story that I found myself hoping that the current main suspect wasn't the killer, caring about these people in a complete reversal to my original feelings of them. When the true culprit was exposed, the answer was satisfying and very bittersweet all at once.

Everything isn't tied up neatly, because life isn't neat. We don't know what happens to the characters past this moment but we don't need to. Our main characters story is done.

I was uncertain when I started reading this book, thinking I’d made a mistake as the main character was a ghost. However, a few pages in and I was hooked. The ghost idea is such a novelty and worked really well. I loved the 1940’s setting, with excellent details of awful food and social constraints. I definitely recommend this book.