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A Schooling in Murder

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A Schooling in Murder

By: Andrew Taylor
Narrated by: Nathalie Buscombe
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About this listen

 From the author of The Ashes of London, comes a new historical mystery set in the last days of WWII

'Ten out of ten' The Times

‘A grand piece of work – a triumph and one of Taylor’s best’ MICK HERRON

'A wonderfully unique novel from the master of historical crime fiction. Beautiful, haunting, and quite brilliant' LAURA SHEPHERD-ROBINSON

‘As good as I’d expect from a master of the craft’ VAL MCDERMID

'A wonderful, subtle novel, set in a strange, enclosed world. Beautiful writing and a gloriously satisfying ending' ANN CLEEVES

__________

England, May 1945

Monkshill Park School for Girls seems a world away from the violence that engulfed Europe during World War II. Yet its lonely, decaying grounds have witnessed a murder.

Annabel Warnock, a teacher with a secretive past, left for the holidays and never came back. Both teachers and girls assume she simply walked out, but the truth is quite different. Her body tumbled from the Maiden’s Leap, a viewpoint on the clifftop Gothic Walk, and was washed out to sea.

But Annabel herself is still trapped at Monkshill, unable to move on. As she haunts the grounds and school, she discovers a hidden world – students, staff and servants are riven with deadly rivalries and dangerous tensions.

And one of them is her killer…

©2025 Andrew Taylor (P)2025 HarperCollins Publishers 20th Century Ghosts Historical Historical Fiction Horror Mystery Suspense Thriller & Suspense Crime England Murder

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Critic reviews

A wonderfully unique novel from the master of historical crime fiction. Beautiful, haunting, and quite brilliant

(Laura Shepherd-Robinson)

A grand piece of work – a triumph and one of Taylor’s best

(Mick Herron)

This ticked all the boxes for me. As good as I’d expect from a master of the craft

(Val McDermid)

A heady mix of murder, intrigue, and a supernatural interlocutor. Taylor’s prose is characteristically fluid, his ability to conjure empathy for his cast – both real and spectral – wonderfully perceptive, and the plot itself gripping in the very best traditions of mystery writing. A thorough delight from start to finish

(Vaseem Khan)

An engrossing, eerie and erudite page turner which maintains the suspense until the very end … I defy anyone not to enjoy this captivating whodunnit!

(SW Perry)

A Schooling in Murder captures the period brilliantly and what a loveable main character– a total delight

(Leonora Nattrass)

This most unusual murder mystery – in which the reader is aligned with the murder victim after her death – is an absolute triumph. Andrew Taylor turns the conventions of mystery stories on their head to explore secrets hidden just beneath the surface within a closed community. A Schooling in Murder is clever, tender and utterly haunting.

(Tim Major)

Andrew Taylor re-invents the classic crime story with the dark aplomb of a modern master

(S.G. MacLean)

A Schooling in Murder is a clever, distinctive, and beautifully written mystery from a crime writer who is top of the class

(Martin Edwards)

An ingenious and intriguing homage to the golden age of crime fiction – A Schooling in Murder is both wryly beguiling and steeped in atmospheric tension. I could not put it down

(Essie Fox)

Taylor evokes beautifully the tawdry atmosphere, the cast of misfits and the relationships and love affairs that must be hidden, with a lightness of touch that belies the deeper tragic elements of the story. This is a novel of immense charm

(Elizabeth Freemantle)

Crime fiction has a new superstar: Annabel Warnock is simply the best narrator I have read in a long time. Acerbic, inquisitive, irrepressible … It hardly matters that she's dead, although of course it matters very much in the plot. This is a splendidly lively and richly entertaining novel. I adored it

(Sarah Hilary)

The master of historical crime fiction is back and he's on top form. Taylor has reinvented the classic crime story to create a riveting WWII mystery set within a secretive school amid deadly rivalries. Brilliantly eery and suspenseful. A triumph

(Anna Mazzola)
All stars
Most relevant  
I have just finished this and feel a little sad because I was enjoying it so much. The right blend of detail and pace made the story flow. Enough characters to be rounded but not too many to keep track. Guessing the key point did not detract from my enjoyment..

Excellent listen

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No spoilers. Andrew Taylor is one of the most reliable and gifted authors writing today. He shows a ready facility to engage the listener or reader from the very first sentence until the novel concludes. This is especially true here, and I would advise any prospective listener not to fall into the trap of researching this novel for fear it will totally undermine the listening pleasure by discovering how it ends. Here is a novel with a satisfying conclusion that will please all and try none. Not a pleasure to waste then. After completing this novel, I played 20 minutes of it though my smart-speaker during a meal in order to test the reaction of my skilled listener wife. She was immediately hooked. This is a stand-alone murder mystery novel and is an object lesson in plotting, characterisation, historical realism – even down to cigarette smoking, a meat-safe and cheeky use of characters hooked on crime fiction. Yes there is humour. There are, also, so many story threads that listeners will always be trying to work-out where these will lead and to what significance. Andrew Taylor’s fictional narrator is sympathetically rendered. The audiobook performer treats this novel well and entirely reliably too. Voice characterisations are fitting for the 1945 setting. Many Audible listeners will know Andrew Taylor for his wonderful Marwood and Lovett’s Restoration novels. Many listeners, including me, thought that series had ended. Not quite so. Another novel is in draft stage, projected publication 2027.

Entirely Satisfying

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I was completely drawn into the story by the thoughtful and entertaining narration that brings the story alive.
Set brilliantly in a struggling girls’ boarding school just after the World War II. At time of uncertainty, financial struggles and the conflict in the Far East still to be resolved.
A wonderful balance of adults and children. The teachers and pupils and those working in auxiliary services to allow the establishment to just keep its balance sheet in the black.
The interesting element to story is that a murder has happened. It is beyond the classic whodunnit as the victim is the narrator of the text. A ghost walking the grounds of the school and the places she had been in life. Now trying to find a means to communicate with the living and solve her murder.

A fascinating location for a murder mystery

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I stuck with this because longer than I would have otherwise done becauseI like the other books by the author,
but this one was really quite poor , even though there was a good idea there and a very promising setting.

very slow and meandering.

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