Two Spinsters and a Madman

Eve Tarrington's Two Spinsters and a Madman was published on March 1, 2025. It is my selection for the Calendar of Crime Reading Challenge. My initial thought about the book is that I have no idea what I just read.

The publisher's summary: 

A foundling, a murder, and a home full of people society has deemed mad. Can two intrepid spinsters save themselves and this rare refuge?

Wealthy Louisa-Margaretta Haddington is spending a London season in the company of Mr Fortescue, a notorious rake and spendthrift. She knows she should not seek him out, but she finds him intriguing. Meanwhile, her old friend Judith St Clair has left her home to work in the Home, a refuge for men and women who are thought to be mad. The resident doctor is Mr Ludlow Fortescue, who is as serious as his London brother is irreverent. Though Judith finds the Quaker beliefs strange, the work is meaningful. When a foundling child is abandoned at the Home, its residents band together to care for her.

Then Mr Ludlow Fortescue is killed.

Suspicion quickly falls on the men and women who are residents of the Home, though Judith knows that not one of them would have intentionally harmed the doctor. Louisa-Margaretta, in order to escape her suitor, promises to solve the murder. But neither of the two friends knows where to start. And when a second foundling is left outside the Home, they begin to wonder if death and new life might be connected.

I must say right off the bat that I don't normally read regency stories. This type of writing was a little strange for me but that is not what bothered me. When I reached page 85 (out of 248) there still had not been a murder. Instead there was 85 pages of characters behaving oh so proper. At this point in the story an infant had been discretely dropped off on the premises. The staff and patients of this upper class psychiatric facility decided to keep the baby instead of taking it to the foundling home. Strange. However, the resident physician and superintendent are supposed to be murdered so I stopped reading for a few days. When I picked up the book again the murder finally occurred.

The investigation was done by two main characters: Judith St. Clair and Louisa Margaretta Harrington. They are friends even though they come from different classes. Louisa Margaretta is an aristocrat who isn't sure that she wants to marry. She has left her family's London manor to stay with Judith at the facility. Strange again. Who vacations in a psychiatric hospital? Louisa offers her hand in marriage to one of the facility's superintendents who just happens to be the brother of the deceased. Louisa Margaretta made a deal with him:  if she discovered the identity of the killer first, she wouldn't have to marry. If she didn't then she would marry Mr. Fortescue. Judith is also on the lookout for a husband. Their investigation consisted of a search of the house belonging to their suspect. The identity of the whodunnit was announced but I have no idea how these two ladies figured it all out. It was surprising though.

The dialogue was particularly old-fashioned because the Quakers running the hospital insisted on everyone speaking with thees and thous. I am not opposed to reading more regency novels but if they are mysteries I want a good pace. I don't know what the standard formula is for regency stories so I don't know what to expect from them. I am not even sure what genre applies here. Initially I thought the book was a cozy mystery. After finishing the book I wondered whether it's a historical mystery. I guess it could be both. 

I enjoyed reading this novel regardless of the problems I mentioned above. I am rating it 3 out of 5 stars.