The Tomb of the Honey Bee (Posie Parker Mystery, #2) by L.B. Hathaway

The Tomb of the Honey Bee (Posie Parker Mystery, #2) Reviews

• 
  Karen

  I read this a while ago. I am now bringing my review to Goodreads.
  
  This is set in the 1920's.
  
  Rosie is back with another mystery in which she is traveling to other countries.
  
  In this story there are more murders, a long-lost lover, a pre-Roman coin, a Bee God and a hidden tomb!
  
  And...
  
  Jealous lovers, grasping relatives, gamblers, and the men of Scotland Yard!
  
  More cozy fun!
• 
  Rosina

  If you want a taste of life in England in the 1920s do not read this book. It is so full of anachronisms, inaccuracies, and lack of research that I gave up about a third of the way through, having decided that when I can recognise so much as wrong, the rest could not be taken seriously, and there was no way of identifying a clue from a stupid error
  
  Examples:
  
  “Posie remembered how, years before, at the age of twenty-one, Alaric had decided he would become a politician, and had caused a huge scandal by giving up his aristocratic title in order to do so.”
  
  Anyone who knows anything about British politcs knows that renouncing a peerage was not possible in the 1920s, which is why an Act of Parliament (The Peerage Act 1963) was necessary to allow Viscount Stansgate to revert to being simple Tony Wedgwood Benn. Moreover, there is nothing to stop a peer being a politician, even a Minister of the Crown. And it was not until 1923 – two years after this book is allegedly set – that the principle that the PM should be in the Commons was firmly set. So he neither needed to ronounce his peerage, nor could he have done so.
  
  
  “And when she tasted it, she realised just why Alaric Boynton-Dale’s honey had won all those awards, why it was famed as the best in the land, why one jar alone was worth paying eighty-four pence for.”
  
  In what currency? What on earth is this about? We have already been told that the honey cost 10/6 (ten shillings and six pence) which isn't 84 pence, and wouldn't be in New Money either. The 'historical note' shows that Ms Hathaway does not know much about money either ... "In England in 1921 there was decimalisation in place; a system involving the use of shillings, pence and pounds." Pounds, shillings and pence are about as far from 'decimalisation' as you can get. And still doesn't explain why suddenly honey is priced in pence.
  
  Hathaway, L.B.. The Tomb of the Honey Bee: A Posie Parker Mystery (The Posie Parker Mystery Series Book 2) (p. 258). Whitehaven Man Press London. Kindle Edition.
  
  
  “She pushed across some money for the first-class stamp to the British Museum and also to pay for the black wax.”
  
  Is the Post Mistress running some sort of scam, taking in more money than the value of the stamp, and pretending they are 'first-class'? In 1921 you could expect next day delivery (same day, in some cases) without paying extra. First class and second class stamps weren't introduced until 1968. Within living memory.
  
  
  “Posie turned and addressed the room:
  
  ‘I think there may well be something in what Mr Sharp says. It’s just as well that I have called in one of the best Inspectors from Scotland Yard. He’s on his way here now, together with his team.’”
  
  Posie seems to have been appointed as Chief Constable of Oxfordshire, since she has it in her power to 'call in' Scotland Yard. I did not wait to learn if the real Chief Constable would take the matter up with the Metropolitan Police, and send Lovelace packing, as he has every right to do. Indeed, I would be amazed if a Scotland Yard detective would be so foolish as to poke his nose in uninvited. Scotland Yard aren't a private investigation firm, brought in by anyone who feels like it!
  
  Anachronistic language includes “wingman” (1943 in aviation), 'moonlighting' (1957).
  
  Also, why can't writers who want to use members of the aristocracy in their fiction do the little bit of research needed to find out the correct forms of address. Lord Roderick would be the younger son of a Marquess or Duke and Lady Eve, his wife, is not the daughter of rough rich Texan millionaire Mr Burns: unless he is the Duke of Dallas or the Earl of Austin.
  
  .
  I am happy that some people enjoyed it, but do not take it seriously, or believe that it is in any way a realistic picture of 1921's England.
• 
  Corrie

  In the second installment of the Posie Parker Mystery Series, author L.B. Hathaway takes our plucky private detective of the Grape Street Bureau on quite an adventure. Posie Parker gets hired by Lady Violet Boynton-Dale to find her brother, the famous explorer Alaric Boynton-Dale. Alaric has gone missing and Violet fears he might have been murdered.
  
  In The Tomb of the Honey Bee, Posie travels to some pretty exotic locations. From a murder in the English Cotswolds, to heartbreak in the South of France. Then following the trail to Ortigia in Sicily and lastly to the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. As usual the bodies keep piling up and it is for Posie to make sense of it all.
  
  Clare Wille was a feast for the ear. Her many voices and accents are a delight and she is the main reason I started this series. And the series is good! I praise L.B. Hathaway for the solid plot and the most fantastic (and highly original) names I’ve come across in a long time (Lady Cosima Catchpole winning the prize here).
  
  It was by pure luck I guessed who the murderer was, it certainly wasn’t given away. I loved the Agatha Christie style reveal at the end, where Posie gathers all the suspects in one room to explain how she got to the killer. Onwards to book 3!
  
  Audiobooks are available on Scribd.
  
  Themes: summer 1921, an altered will, Boynton Hall in the English Cotswolds, a gold honey bee coin, Dame Ianthe Flowers writes a tell-all book, we find out where Len has gone off to, it’s all about the honey.
  
  4.4 Stars
• 
  Amanda Jane

  Historically inaccurate bit clichéd
  
  If you choose to write in an era you really ought to make sure that you don't change the dates of significant events. All it does is suspend belief and cast doubt on your capacity to research accurately.. padding out the back with excuses doesn't make it ok.. move the story date by a year instead.. that would be much more believable.
  
  Declaring the price of a jar of honey at 84p when it would have been stated in shillings and pence.. decimalisation happened in 1971 not 1921.. some 50 years away and when you remove these basic staples of life in the 1920's it removes the period feel.. by switching them for your own convenience you are removing the very things that provide the reality, the authenticity and the character to your story.
  
  On the one hand you state that a flat in Bloomsbury would have cost a few hundred pounds.. on the other you state she sank her entire capital (£10,000) into the flat.. it would have been a few hundred pounds.. this really needs fixing.. there's no way she went through all of that on the flat.. it was enough as you stated for her to be set for life based on the era.
  
  Christie wrote in the now, which made this much simpler, to achieve even a modicum of her success you need to immerse yourself in the period and write it as if you are living it. Until you can get the full flavour of the era accurately and naturally into the background the full impact of the surface story will be lost and they will continue to disappoint those of us who seek truly compelling reads set in specific eras such as Christie's and Marsh's.
  
  
• 
  Anna Aurora

  uh I have so many feeling right now.First,I did really like the story,Posie is one of the most real book main leads I have ever read about,I just love her.But...I did figure out who is the killer in the beginning of the book,that was a disappointment(I do like to be surprised at the end).Overall really interesting book,if you like detective stories and mystery this is for you .
  4/5
• 
  Amina (ⴰⵎⵉⵏⴰ)

  In this second settlement, Posie takes us to some amazingly exotic places.. Italy for example.
  It's true, I was able to point out who did it in the very first beggining of the book, but still, I enjoyed following her every move throughout the chapters, but, if you read it for more than its "mystery" part, you might find some innacurecies, so proceed cautiously.
  
  The one thing I don't really like in this series so far is the way it revolves around Posie's love life, I mean, it doesn't value the fact that she is one of the most renowned "female" detectives but only that she's always and desperately chasing love, it's nice a to have a great partner, but, the world won't come to an end if you spend some time by yourself right?
  
• 
  Ellen

  I loved the setting in 1921!
  
  It is so refreshing to read a mystery that is powered by the players and not what they figured out from using tech. It is evocative of Christie and Allingham. Looking forward to the next book!
• 
  Elizabeth

  On a roll with this series! So many of the reviews say they guessed the murderer early on. I did not at all and was as shocked as the other characters. This had a very Poirot-like denouement where Posie goes through each of the suspects and explains their potential motives and also why they couldn’t have done it. I enjoyed that. The three star rating is because I found the murderer’s story tragic and a bit gruesome and I hate when there are multiple deaths, some of which are of innocents because the killer was desperate and “unlucky”.
  
  Otherwise, I continue to enjoy Posie and her various friends very much. I enjoyed Alaric’s character as well. The travel bits in the story were delightful, including the story about the world famous, rare honey from bees raised by monks. I love honey myself so those details were fun. Other reviews also mentioned historical inaccuracies but I didn’t notice any. It could be because I’m listening to the audio. But I don’t get too fussed about historical inaccuracies unless they’re really blatant. I’m reading this for fun! There are lots of other things I can get worked up about.
  
  Onto book 3!
• 
  Fiona

  I’m sorry but this felt sloppy.
  
  
  Obvious clues that were ignored by the detective and police - the manuscript. And why an author of murder mysteries would write a whole book about a murder, announce she has something important to tell you tomorrow in a crowded room when she knows who did it (and they are in the room) and not expect to get killed or not have a back up planned is just silly. And then no one bothers to read it???? And someone who has had 3 attempts on his life keeps running away but not very carefully? And an ineffective killer who is apparently ruthless and terribly clever but only poisons one glass? And a detective who ignores clues and doesn’t press people further on what they know? Because he seems a bit sad? Where is her gumption? Where are her great detective skills when it comes to Len or the flowers? I tried to give Posey another go but she doesn’t give you much to connect with or cheer for. It sort of gets resolved despite her rather than because of her actions or cleverness. Disappointing.
• 
  Richard

  Lots of fun as Posie travels to exotic Sicily and Egypt, following the mystery of Alaric's disappearance. I thoroughly enjoyed it. The style is light and charming. Read the last third of the book in one sitting, and couldn't put it down. The climax was also amusingly melodramatic.
  
  In the book I ran across a couple of small but obvious-to-me anachronisms in use of idioms, which I'd be happy to point out if Ms Hathaway contacts me. Also one rather larger technological gaff that made me roll my eyes while smiling. Oh! The Tutankhamen thing: yes, I read the footnotes so at least I know that's a known historical liberty. ;-)
  
• 
  Fercarranza

  The plot pushes you through the book because it is interesting enough. The setting and atmosphere are nice though not historically accurate. But Posie feels like an undeveloped character, people around her call her intuitive even though she is clueless half of the book. She can’t even figure out her love interest has moved on. The most frustrating bit of the story to me was the “Serafina” inscription on the bee coin. She goes asking people (about a really ancient, hundreds of years ancient coin) “Who is Serafina? Where can I find her? Is she protecting Alaric?”... why would a person dedicated to investigation assume that Serafina was a living person... what is wrong with her common sense.
• 
  Les

  (Grr the internet ate my review)
  
  This is a version of a classic British mystery that sets off at a Country House Murder, moves to a Blue Train adventure, before high tailing it off to Luxor and the Valley of the Kings before making its way back to the Country House. It also makes a quick side trip to Sicily that makes Michael Corleone's look peaceful. We have a bunch of murders, a long lost lover, a pre-Roman coin, a Bee God and hidden tomb. And we can't forget jealous lovers, grasping relatives, degenerate gamblers, and the intrepid men of Scotland Yard.
  I couldn't stop reading.
• 
  Voirrey

  This was fun, and I enjoyed it, even though I figured out the villain by half way through the book.
  
  My major gripe is that everything is clearly labelled with months in 1921 and yet the wonders discovered in the tomb of Tutankhamen is referenced - the discovery was made in November 1922, and the burial chamber not opened until February 1923.... And it would have been so easy to check the date and just not mention it, as it wasn't a major plot point.
• 
  Lauren

  Everyone in the comments is saying they knew who it was asap rocky but I didn’t I don’t even believe it now I’m like nah they were nice. Also why did she start the book dating down and getting cheated on and finish the book dating up go girl I guess. also everyone cared about the museum dudes dying but not the Egyptian guard I call that good old fashioned British racism.
• 
  Linda Baker

  3.5 rounded up
• 
  Susie

  This book was kind of a charmer! It was well paced and engrossing. Posie grows up a bit. I missed her gaggle of London pals and colleagues in this one, though. A few times the writing felt immature or repetitive, but it didn’t stop me from enjoying the plot. I did have the mystery solved by the end, which always bums me out a bit. But still a solid and enjoyable read!
• 
  Nick D

  (audiobook with a fairly good reader)
  
  This reads like it started as an atrocious rambling mess that got turned into something approaching mediocrity by a good editor. What's left still rambles, but some of the excesses have been sewed up into dead ends and silly coincidences.
  
  What kept me going to the end was the comical entertainment of the anachronisms - both factual and linguistic. They reached a pinnacle when the action (pointlessly) moved to a Egypt (an Egypt in which commoner tombs are found in the Valley of the Kings, and in which the Nile longer forms a barrier to road transport between the tombs and the town of Luxor), with one character borrowing a jet aircraft, and another speaking of the treasures of Tutankhamun - in 1921.
• 
  Geraldine Sidoli

  Did nobody proof read this story?
  
  This story works well enough as a light-hearted romp, but having set it in the 1920s why does the author riddle it with anachronistic language and details? Tutankhamen’s tomb was discovered in November 1922, so would hardly be commonplace knowledge a year earlier. Radar - discovered in the 1940s, so what are the chances anyone would be advised to stay under the radar in 1921? Stepping out of turn instead of speaking out of turn, twitching on your heels for nipping at your heels. I may be pedantic but why would I read anything else by this author when Christie, Allingham, Sayers et al are still in print? Not even Posie is interesting enough to be memorable, so this will my last Posie Parker mystery
• 
  Keeley

  Another enjoyable mystery featuring the unpredictable Posie Parker. The exotic locations and varied new characters made for a fun read. The storytelling techniques -- like allowing the detective to discover something that is not shared with the reader -- are appropriate to the genre, even if the plot sometimes leaps oddly as a result. I continue to love how Posie seems stronger than a heroine written in the Twenties would have been, without acting totally inappropriately to her time (as, say, Lindsay Davis' delightful characters sometimes do).
• 
  Bebe (Sarah) Brechner

  Excellent 1920's mystery!
  
  This second entry of the Posie Parker series is a thrilling throwback mystery in the classic Agatha Christie tradition - a stately manor home, aristocratic suspects, and plenty of dead bodies cleverly murdered. Add to the mix, exotic locations (Sicily, Egypt), archeology, a touch of delicious honey, and the finesse of 1920 details, and we have a winning potion! Truly engrossing read. More of Miss Posie Parker, please!
• 
  Belinda Vlasbaard

  4 stars- English Ebook
  
  The Tomb of the Honey Bee: A Posie Parker Mystery, is the second book in this series.
  
  Posie Parker is a detective living in London in the 1920s. Lady Violet asks Posie to find her brother, Alaric.
  
  First, Posie goes to Boynton Hall to meet the family. What a nasty bunch of people! It’s obvious that husbands, wives, brothers, and sisters don’t get along, and the atmosphere is absolutely evil. So, Posie leaves as soon as she can—after a writer is murdered in the house. She stays in touch with Scotland Yard, and continues her search for Alaric.
  
  It leads her to France, where she’s in for a surprise, and then to Sicily. She knows someone is following her, but she’s not sure who it is. She is successful in finding Alaric in Sicily, but she tries to keep it a secret while she unravels the rest of the mystery.
  
  Before she knows it, she and Alaric flee danger to Egypt, where an amazing archeological find is made in the Valley of the Kings. Disaster and death follow, and Posie finds a clue that leads her back home to London and to Stowe in the Cotswolds to solve the mystery.
  
  There’s more to the story, of course. What does the coin with the honeybee mean? Why did Alaric leave his home? Where is his sanctuary, and why does he need to go to Egypt? What is the golden find? And, who murdered Ianthe and the archaeologist? Most important, why is the murderer trying to kill Alaric?
  
  I love the British speech in this book series, references to places I’ve actually visited, and the distinctly English feel to her books. Even though this novel takes place in varying points on the globe, the reader feels rooted in England and British customs. I also love her book covers, fittingly illustrated in Art Deco style.
  
  I am not sure this is considered a “Christian book,” but it is absolutely clean. There are no ugly words, no sexual innuendo, and no negative moral tone.
• 
  Dan

  I liked it enough to, maybe, continue this series. The story could be tighter. I breezed through a chapter or two that were mere "telling" than "showing", describing the archeological dig in Egypt that didn't propel the plot forward or could have been trimmed to a couple of paragraphs instead. The chapters are longer than other cozy mysteries I've read. Some chapter work, others not so much.
  
  This is the second book in the Posie Parker mysteries and Posie has established a somewhat profitable detective agency with ties to the Scotland Yard. She's hired (for free) by Lady Violet to investigate the whereabouts of her brother, Alaric, an adventurer who sees the world as his home to be explored.
  
  Posie's invited to the manor of Lady Violet where she meets the other characters (and eventual suspects of the cast). A mystery author, Ianthe Flowers, is there writing her next mystery book titled, The Tomb of the Honey Bee when she's found dead in her bed the next day with the last page of her manuscript ripped. Who's the suspect? Lady Violet's other brother? His wife? Alaric's friend and her wife (and Alaric's sometime lover?)
  
  I had an inkling of who the murderer was halfway through the book. It's not because of the obvious clues, but rather because the clues seemed too obvious for comfort that they must be red herrings. And I was right. But no spoilers here.
  
  Overall, except for some dragging parts, the book is good. One thing I hated about it was towards the last part when Posie knew who the killer was but kept it from the reader and dragged it on for a couple of chapters for a staged reveal. I hate that style of writing where the characters know, but the readers are kept in the dark just to drag the pages for the reader. C'mon. It's not a weekly series.
• 
  Juliette

  Rating : 1,5 ⭐
  This book was an overall disappointment. All the issues I had with the first book are still present in the sequel. The plot was too convoluted and didn't make enough sense for me to suspend my disbelief. I figured out who the murderer was very early in the story, which made it difficult to care about everything that was happening. I also wasn't a fan of the character development. The person being set up as a love interest in the first book was revealed to be totally unsuitable for the role, and I didn't like the way it was integrated in the story. It really shows that the author changed her mind between the two books. I don't disagree with the choice to go in a different direction, but it could have been written in a less jarring way. Although my favourite part was definitely the reveal. Not because it was satisfying, but because it's the only part of the book that actually made me laugh out loud, even if I wasn't supposed to. The big reveal felt like a Riverdale shitpost! The murderer's actions are literally explained away by saying she has the serial killer gene. Also, she killed all those people simply because she wanted to be a Girlboss™ so badly. She would fit right in on that stupid show. How am I supposed to take that seriously? I'm glad I got some enjoyment out of it, but that ending really put me off reading the rest of this series. I don't even care enough to find out what's gonna happen with the big nemesis thing that's being set up. I'm officially giving up.
• 
  Nichole Carrier

  What a fantastic read! Posie is tasked with trying to locate a famous explorer, Alaric, who has disappeared. Posie quickly realizes that things are not quite as they seem after she learns that Alaric has recently survived several near death experiences. Posie is further drawn in when she visits Alaric's home and finds a dead body, disheveled rooms and a coin that has some kind of significance but none she can figure out.
  
  The author takes is through so many wonderful locations. I won't mention them for fear of spoiling the story, but each location is brilliantly described. The author takes her time to describe each setting and the people there without going overboard and spending too much time on the extras. The story flows quickly and really draws the reader in. I was sucked in and spent many hours over the past two days reading this novel.