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Susanna, Lady Appleton #4
Face Down Beneath the Eleanor Cross
Susanna, Lady Appleton discovers that her husband, Sir Robert, thought long dead, is actually alive. The renowned herbalist is summoned to London, but finds her poisoned husband beneath the Eleanor Cross. Vowing to bring his killer to justice, Susanna embarks on a daring winter journey and discovers there is no shortage of those who bore animosity toward Robert.
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
About the author
Kathy Lynn Emerson
105 books150 followersaka Kaitlyn Dunnett, Kate Emerson, Kaitlyn Gorton
Kathy Lynn Emerson began writing as a child: a newspaper for her dolls and then a rambling adventure series featuring characters from all her favorite television shows. In addition to contemporary, historical and time-travel romance (some written under the pen-name of Kaitlyn Gorton) and historical novels written as Kate Emerson, Kathy has written children's books, non-fiction, short stories, and historical mysteries. She won the Agatha award for mystery nonfiction for How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries. She also writes as Kaitlyn Dunnett.
Kathy Lynn Emerson began writing as a child: a newspaper for her dolls and then a rambling adventure series featuring characters from all her favorite television shows. In addition to contemporary, historical and time-travel romance (some written under the pen-name of Kaitlyn Gorton) and historical novels written as Kate Emerson, Kathy has written children's books, non-fiction, short stories, and historical mysteries. She won the Agatha award for mystery nonfiction for How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries. She also writes as Kaitlyn Dunnett.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
December 27, 2018
Face Down Beneath the Eleanor Cross by Kathy Lynn Emerson is the 4th book of the Susanna, Lady Appleton mystery series set in 16th-century England. Susanna unexpectedly receives a coded message from Robert, summoning her to meet him in the Black Jack pub in Westminster with plenty of gold coins. He has been officially dead for 18 months, although Susanna always suspected he was alive and in hiding. She is delayed by the bitter January weather; he is not in the pub when she arrives. She is walking to an inn where he might be staying when she sees a crowd gathering. As she watches, a man staggers and falls at the Eleanor Cross monument. Susanna's kind heart compels her to see if there is any aid she can offer. There is not; he is dead. She realizes to her shock that it is Robert, and he has been poisoned.
She is well known for her herbalist book, which she intended as a cautionary reference against common poisons in the garden, but has been used by murderers. Of course she is at once arrested for killing Robert. Susanna is imprisoned at the fearsome Newgate. Law enforcement in 1565 was not interested in the truth, only in speedy apprehension and brutal execution. Reasonable doubt was not considered. If a crime seemed likely, the suspect was guilty. Jurors risk consequences if they decide contrary to the prosecution. The punishment for killing a husband was extreme: burning at the stake.
Susanna calls for help from her very dear friend Sir Walter Pendennis. Released on bail, she has less than 5 months to find Robert's killer. Her premise: one of Robert's many mistresses killed him. Her plan: meet each one face-to-face, and determine which one killed him.
Susanna meets and tentatively rules out several mistresses. She spends the majority of her time at Appleton Manor in Lancashire, where Eleanor lives. Eleanor and Robert's illegitimate daughter Rosamund has Robert's eyes; she is the longed-for daughter Susanna never had with Robert. Eleanor has little interest in Rosamund. Surprisingly, since Eleanor seems very likely to be Robert's murderer, Susanna becomes friends with Eleanor. Sir Walter is entirely smitten.
This story is the most suspenseful and has the toughest puzzle to solve in the series so far. Since the series continues, the reader has the advantage of knowing Susanna somehow survives. She's gutsy, intelligent, quick-witted, resourceful, resilient, compassionate - quite a rarity in her historical setting.
She is well known for her herbalist book, which she intended as a cautionary reference against common poisons in the garden, but has been used by murderers. Of course she is at once arrested for killing Robert. Susanna is imprisoned at the fearsome Newgate. Law enforcement in 1565 was not interested in the truth, only in speedy apprehension and brutal execution. Reasonable doubt was not considered. If a crime seemed likely, the suspect was guilty. Jurors risk consequences if they decide contrary to the prosecution. The punishment for killing a husband was extreme: burning at the stake.
Susanna calls for help from her very dear friend Sir Walter Pendennis. Released on bail, she has less than 5 months to find Robert's killer. Her premise: one of Robert's many mistresses killed him. Her plan: meet each one face-to-face, and determine which one killed him.
Susanna meets and tentatively rules out several mistresses. She spends the majority of her time at Appleton Manor in Lancashire, where Eleanor lives. Eleanor and Robert's illegitimate daughter Rosamund has Robert's eyes; she is the longed-for daughter Susanna never had with Robert. Eleanor has little interest in Rosamund. Surprisingly, since Eleanor seems very likely to be Robert's murderer, Susanna becomes friends with Eleanor. Sir Walter is entirely smitten.
This story is the most suspenseful and has the toughest puzzle to solve in the series so far. Since the series continues, the reader has the advantage of knowing Susanna somehow survives. She's gutsy, intelligent, quick-witted, resourceful, resilient, compassionate - quite a rarity in her historical setting.
August 8, 2020
2020 bk 266. Another excellent mystery starring Lady Appleton, only this time Lady Appleton is the chief suspect, accused of poisoning her 'returned from the dead' husband. Released from Newgate with a prison guard, but free to travel England as long as she returns for trial after Easter, this is a trip through her husband's mistresses and properties. With a loyal band of friends and servants, the group seeks to ferret out who would want to pin a murder on Lady Appleton. A very well done, well researched mystery of the late medieval/early renaissance period of English history.
April 6, 2015
This book was so good, I read it in one day! It is a great Renaissance mystery and part of an excellent series featuring Lady Susannah Appleton. Lady Susannah solves the mysteries in each one of these stories, until in this one, she herself is accused of murder and must try to find a way to prove her innocence, a nearly impossible feat.
December 4, 2022
I absolutely love this series!!!
February 28, 2017
Very readable and interesting. Lots of suspense (well, in a muted way) right up until the last chapter. I like the character of Susanna Appleton and the relationships she has with the people around her. I see some characters exiting and new ones being introduced in the next book in this series.
June 10, 2019
Didn't enjoy it as much. She stopped it being about herbs.
April 16, 2022
Not as good as the first one. Will not continue with the series.
November 22, 2008
This book is a murder mystery set in 1565, and it is meticulously researched. (In fact, historical tidbits not necessary to understand what's going on are frequently strewn throughout the story. This occassonally decreases the tension of a scene.)
Solving the murder mystery doesn't seem to be the primary focus of the novel since most of the book is spent with Susanna playing with her stepdaughter or with the other characters falling in love with each other. This is just as well since I was able to correctly identify the murder immediately after our introduction to that character and none of the red herrings shook that conviction.
I suspect this book isn't a good one to be introduced to the heroine, Susanna Appleton. She is placed in a position were she should have emotions: concern, worry, dread, saddness, etc. Except for brief flashes of emotion, Susanna seems remarkably unbothered by anything, from the loss of her husband to the threat to her life to the stress of confronting her husbands mistresses. To me, she came across as bland and unrealisticaly unemotional.
I also had a hard time thinking very highly of Susanna. She only asks her suspects some brief, obvious questions and trustingly accepts their answers. She never tries to dig deeper to find the truth and doesn't look beyond "the obvious suspects" until she's about to be sentenced to death. This wouldn't be a problem for me except that all the characters think her so astonishingly clever at solving murder mysteries.
The secondary point-of-view characters are engaging even if sometimes I didn't understand why they acted the way they did. For those who care, two unmarried characters do have sex, but it isn't explict.
Solving the murder mystery doesn't seem to be the primary focus of the novel since most of the book is spent with Susanna playing with her stepdaughter or with the other characters falling in love with each other. This is just as well since I was able to correctly identify the murder immediately after our introduction to that character and none of the red herrings shook that conviction.
I suspect this book isn't a good one to be introduced to the heroine, Susanna Appleton. She is placed in a position were she should have emotions: concern, worry, dread, saddness, etc. Except for brief flashes of emotion, Susanna seems remarkably unbothered by anything, from the loss of her husband to the threat to her life to the stress of confronting her husbands mistresses. To me, she came across as bland and unrealisticaly unemotional.
I also had a hard time thinking very highly of Susanna. She only asks her suspects some brief, obvious questions and trustingly accepts their answers. She never tries to dig deeper to find the truth and doesn't look beyond "the obvious suspects" until she's about to be sentenced to death. This wouldn't be a problem for me except that all the characters think her so astonishingly clever at solving murder mysteries.
The secondary point-of-view characters are engaging even if sometimes I didn't understand why they acted the way they did. For those who care, two unmarried characters do have sex, but it isn't explict.
December 31, 2011
I now know more about the Elizabethan legal system than I would have thought a normal person should. Of course, I also know a great deal about the classical Athenian legal system, but on purpose. Susanna Appleton has been fitted up for the murder of her should-have-been-already-deceased husband. After bribing her way through Newgate, she's released on the recognizance of a bailiff who must be with her at all times (until she figures out she can bribe him to wait outside the door). She has weeks to find the true killer, who doesn't seem to have known that her conviction would actually dash this person's ambitions although this person should have known better.
Susanna is unsuccessful solving the mystery, until the next-to-the-last moment - the last moment being when she was tied to the stake and the fire lit for the standard punishment for "petty treason" - murder of a husband by his wife. [Rolls eyes a bit.] I'll probably read more of the series, but I was a little put off by the detective-accused-of-murder trope in this book.
Susanna is unsuccessful solving the mystery, until the next-to-the-last moment - the last moment being when she was tied to the stake and the fire lit for the standard punishment for "petty treason" - murder of a husband by his wife. [Rolls eyes a bit.] I'll probably read more of the series, but I was a little put off by the detective-accused-of-murder trope in this book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 18, 2015
So, in this installment Lady Appleton happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. She is supposed to be meeting her husband (who was pronounced dead after he fled the country). Of course, instead, she misses him at the alleged meeting place and then stumbles upon him dying of poison in the middle of a crowd (under the Eleanor Cross) she is immediately placed under arrest because everyone knows Susanna knows her poisons and is accused of killing her husband. She has to find the real killer before her arraigned trial. A good mystery, a little lacking towards the end tho. I like how she confronts the killer, but it kind of goes from a built climax and then suddenly seemed to just drop. I guess I was looking for a little more on the "why" and "how". Still, I dig this series and am enjoying them.
October 16, 2015
Complicated feelings are complicated. On one hand, never have a wished for an imaginary person’s death with such passion as I wished Lady Susanna’s husband dead as a doornail. But, of course, the lying philanderer can’t just die quietly and without bother. Oh no, he has to drop dead in the middle of London, after supposedly being dead for at least a year, and do so at the very feet of his long-suffering wife, thereby landing her in jail for his apparent murder. Seriously, I’d resurrect this dude just to kick him. Oddly, with such high stakes, this one seemed to drag quite a bit more than previous books in the series and was overall just not as much fun. Another character I had rather liked turned out to be a sort of cad (or at least far more prone to think with his little head than I had hoped). Oy. All in all, this was a bit of a slog.
December 19, 2012
Susanna, Lady Appleton, is full of knowledge I want to know. This is one of those series in which the supporting cast is often more entertaining than the main character, but the details of the time period fascinate me and all the activities of the various players are wound together in service to the mystery story. Nancy Means Wright credits this author, Kathy Lynn Emerson, with inspiring and guiding her own books, so if you're a fan of one, you may also enjoy the other. I'm on a real historical mystery with woman sleuth bender right now...it's the triple-threat escapist novel genre for the over-educated and currently stressed-out me.
January 12, 2016
This is another mystery in the Lady Appleton series, and it basically follows the same pattern as the previous ones. In this book, Lady Appleton's long lost husband shows up, but he is dying from poison and she gets blamed for it. Honestly, this felt more like a historical character study than a mystery, because it was very easy to figure out. I enjoyed the cameo appearances by Lady Mary Grey and Leicester, but this is not one of the strongest books in this series. Based on this one, I'm not sure if I'll continue the series.
July 26, 2009
Some interesting twists and turns in this installment. Lady Susanna Appleton must defend herself agains charges of murder. To escape being burned at the stake, she interviews 3 of her husband's mistresses in search of clues to the identity of the real murderer. Emerson brings a real sense of the Elizabethian time period in addition to providing a satisfying mystery.
September 25, 2010
another enjoyable adventure of Lady Susan Appleby, this time accused of murdering the husband she thought died months ago. The Elizabethan era is lavishly recreated, and perhaps the feminist sentiments of the protagonist are unlikely but not unlikely to a modern reader.
April 15, 2012
Good reading. I still like this series.
October 11, 2012
I was incredibly drawn in from the beginning, and I'm very happy with how it ended.
October 25, 2013
Another great murder mystery.
July 29, 2015
"Face Down Beneath the Eleanor Cross" - written by Kathy Lynn Emerson and published in 2000 by Minotaur Books. A murder mystery featuring Lady Appleton that takes place in 1500s England.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews