Wouldn’t It Be Deadly: An Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins Mystery book review

Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins make an incomparable pair of sleuths in the start of a delightful new series

Following her successful appearance at an Embassy Ball―where Eliza Doolittle won Professor Henry Higgins’ bet that he could pass off a Cockney flower girl as a duchess―Eliza becomes an assistant to his chief rival Emil Nepommuck. After Nepommuck publicly takes credit for transforming Eliza into a lady, an enraged Higgins submits proof to a London newspaper that Nepommuck is a fraud. When Nepommuck is found with a dagger in his back, Henry Higgins becomes Scotland Yard’s prime suspect. However, Eliza learns that most of Nepommuck’s pupils had a reason to murder their blackmailing teacher. As another suspect turns up dead and evidence goes missing, Eliza and Higgins realize the only way to clear the Professor’s name is to discover which of Nepommuck’s many enemies is the real killer. When all the suspects attend a performance of Hamlet at Drury Lane, Eliza and Higgins don their theatre best and race to upstage a murderer.

This reimagining of George Bernard Shaw’s beloved characters is sheer pleasure. Wouldn’t It Be Deadly transports readers to Edwardian London, from the aristocratic environs of Mayfair to the dangerous back alleys of the East End. Eliza and Henry steal the show in this charming traditional mystery.

My thoughts:

Many of you know I love Audrey Hepburn.  My Fair Lady is my all time favorite movie.  My family laughs as I watch it at least once a month.  Can you imagine my surprise when I got this book in my hands or I should said iPad.

I feel in love with the story in the first few pages.  The story takes place after the Embassy Ball and Eliza takes a job with Nepommuck as his assistant.  When Higgins and Pickering come back from Spain they are surprised to find out she is working with him.  She had to do something to make a living and she didn’t want to get the flower shop as of yet.

Things start to go wrong when Eliza comes to work and the hall way is all dark.  Someone knocks her over and in the process Nepommuck thinks she has lost her mind when he finds her.  When Higgins burst through her door later that day he makes a big scene which causes even more stress on Eliza.  Not to mention Mary, one of Eliza’s pupils clings to Nepommuck in horror of Higgins.

Higgins decides to tell the truth about Nepommuck in the local newspaper.  Shortly after Nepommuck is found dead.  Now Eliza has to try and save Higgins from going to jail which might be hard when he is hiding where he was on the morning of the murder.

The authors did a wonderful job with this story.  There were a lot of laugh out loud moments, twists, wonderful character interaction. You can hear Audrey and Rex in this story.  Eliza is a hoot there is one scene on the stage that is so funny I dropped my tablet.

The best part about the book is all the characters are brought in from the movie.  Mrs Higgins, Freddy, & Mrs Pearce keeping everyone inline.  I could not put the book down it is that good.

I am already reading Move Your Blooming Corpse the second book in the series and loving it.

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