Audiobook Review: A Rogue's Company by Allison Montclair

A Rogue's Company
Author: Allison Montclair
Narrator: Sarah Nichols
Series: Sparks & Bainbridge Mysteries (Book 3)
Publication: Blackstone Publishing (June 22, 2021)
Length: 9 hours and 49 minutes

Description: In Allison Montclair's A Rogue's Company, business becomes personal for the Right Sort Marriage Bureau when a new client, a brutal murder, two kidnappings, and the recently returned from Africa Lord Bainbridge threatens everything that one of the principals holds dear.

In London, 1946, the Right Sort Marriage Bureau is getting on its feet and expanding. Miss Iris Sparks and Mrs. Gwendolyn Bainbridge are making a go of it. That is until Lord Bainbridge—the widowed Gwen's father-in-law and legal guardian—returns from a business trip to Africa and threatens to undo everything important to her, even sending her six-year-old son away to a boarding school.

But there's more going on than that. A new client shows up at the agency, one whom Sparks and Bainbridge begin to suspect really has a secret agenda, somehow involving the Bainbridge family. A murder and a subsequent kidnapping sends Sparks to seek help from a dangerous quarter—and now their very survival is at stake.

My Thoughts: Lord Bainbridge returns from Africa in this third Sparks & Bainbridge mystery. He throws the whole house into chaos when he demands that Gwen's son Ronnie be sent away to a harsh boarding school. Gwen is even more determined to regain custody of her son but her psychiatrist is not yet willing to indicate that she's been cured. 

But Ronnie's custody is only one part of the problem. Gwen was also willed her husband's share of the company Lord Bainbridge built. Her court appointed financial manager has been unwilling to do anything other than let Lord Bainbridge control Gwen's inherited shares. 

Lord Bainbridge brought home other problems from Africa too. These problems lead to the death of a man outside his exclusive club. And they lead Lord Bainbridge's kidnapping and Gwen's too since she was in the car arguing with him with the kidnap attempt went down. 

Gwen's kidnapping has her partner Iris Sparks willing to call in any and all favors to find and rescue her friend. This jeopardizes Sparks' relationship with her gangster boyfriend Archie. And it reveals some things Gwen and Sparks' friend Sally hasn't been willing to reveal.

And then there is the object that a new client at the marriage bureau is looking for which has ties to the Bainbridge family. Since the new client is a Black man, it causes both Gwen and Sparks to question some of their assumptions about their own prejudices and the purposes of their marriage bureau.

This was an action-packed episode in the series. Lots of secrets were revealed. 

I bought this one at Chirp. You can buy your copy here.