The Undertaker:Masquerade by Carmel McMurdo Audsley

This is the second book in the Undertaker series. That and murder in the bush by Carmel Audsley have been reviewed earlier on this blog. So back in my favorite genre. I had two quibbles with this book. It was very short and some characters and events could have been fleshed out a bit more. I also found it hard to believe that with all Kate has been through in book 1 she would still take such naive and unnecessary risks. I gave this 4 stars as it is well written and a good story.

Being a woman in the 19^th century wasn’t easy, not even in enlightened Scotland. Edinburgh was known at the time for its pioneering medical research. Something our Heroine Kate Grainger would love to be part off, but being a woman she can’t apply to study medicine.

I read the first part of the undertaker and was quite taken with this plucky woman who decided to live her life her way. I’ve read a few of Carmel Audsley’s books now and like them, this one is well researched. She has based the book on a real person but has taken it in different and surprising direction. Like all good historical fiction this tickled my interest to do a bit further reading.

One thing annoyed me a bit was, as Kate Grainger went through quite a lot in the undertaker, so I found her pig-headed naivety a bit harder to take. I hope if we see another chapter I would like to see a bit more caution due to a few hard lessons learnt. But as usual this was written in an entertain style. At a 128 pages a very quick read.