Early one morning in 1665 a constable knocks at a London magistrate‘s house. A young woman has been found stabbed to death in the fields nearby. Lucy Campion, the chambermaid, hears it while she works. Soon the killer comes closer to home, and the plague is beginning to spread through the city. This is Susanna Calkins’s debut novel, published by Minotaur Books on April 23, 2013. It is the first of the Lucy Campion Mysteries.
What Is A Murder at Rosamund’s Gate About?
Lucy serves in the household of Master Hargrave, a magistrate who treats his servants well. Her best friend below stairs is Bessie, the lady’s maid. Then Bessie is found murdered at Rosamund’s Gate, a park where courting couples meet. Suspicion first falls on the magistrate’s son, Adam. Then Lucy’s brother, Will, is arrested for the crime and locked up in Newgate Prison.
Will in Newgate Prison: Can Lucy Uncover the Murderer?
In 17th-century England the accused were presumed guilty, and no lawyer could defend them in court. Lucy knows that Will may hang unless she can uncover the real murderer. Her search takes her to printers’ shops, to a gypsy camp and into Newgate itself. The clues hide in miniature portraits, in popular ballads and in a corpse’s pointing finger. Meanwhile the plague reaches the household, and the story runs on into the Great Fire of London in 1666.
The Magistrate’s Servant Who Learned to Read
Lucy is 18 when the series begins. She learned to read by listening while the magistrate‘s daughter had her lessons, which already makes her unusual for a servant. Calkins said in interviews that she did not want an upper-class heroine. She pictured a hard-working maid, the person she herself would have been in the seventeenth century. Lucy’s view from below stairs is the book’s great strength. Adam is drawn to her but sees her as beneath him, and the class gap keeps their romance unresolved.
Our Review: A Debut Novel Set in Plague-Year London
Calkins is a historian, and it shows on every page. The story is set in 1665, the year of the Great Plague. Restoration England is grimy and crowded, and the rules that bind a servant are always present. The street ballads and broadsides, sold to spread news of local crimes, are woven into the plot as clues. That is the most original thing in the book.
The mystery itself is less strong. The first half moves slowly, and readers who know the genre may guess the killer before Lucy does. The ending makes up for a lot: the climax takes place while London burns. Content note: there is real danger, including a threatened assault. We would call it a historical mystery with cozy elements, and Calkins herself compares that mix to Anne Perry. Fans of historical fiction will enjoy it most.
What Do Reviewers and Readers Think of the Book?
Publishers Weekly praised the vivid picture of London on the eve of the plague. The reviewer found the solution weaker than the rest but said the writing promised well for the series. Kirkus liked the carefully researched historical detail and warned that seasoned readers may spot the killer, though they will probably enjoy the story anyway. Booklist called Lucy a strong heroine and the climax nail-biting.
The book was a 2014 Macavity finalist for the Sue Feder Historical Mystery Award. Barnes & Noble picked it as a Mystery Pick, and the Chicago Book Review named it one of the best books of 2013. On book blogs, readers praise the red herrings and the court-system detail, and some find the middle slow.
From Chambermaid to Printer: The Series in Order
Book 2 starts two weeks after the first one ends, right after the Great Fire, and Lucy becomes a printer’s apprentice. Read the series in order, because Lucy’s work and her bond with Adam change from book to book:
- A Murder at Rosamund’s Gate (2013, Minotaur)
- From the Charred Remains (2014, Minotaur)
- The Masque of a Murderer (2015, Minotaur), winner of the 2016 Sue Feder Historical Mystery Award
- A Death Along the River Fleet (2016, Minotaur)
- The Sign of the Gallows (2020 in the UK, 2021 in the US, Severn House)
- The Cry of the Hangman (2021, Severn House)
- Death Among the Ruins (2023, Severn House)
No eighth book has been announced as of October 2026.
Formats and Editions: Where to Buy It
Three editions exist, all from Minotaur:
- the hardcover of April 23, 2013, now mostly second-hand;
- the trade paperback of March 25, 2014, which is still in print;
- the ebook, published with the hardcover.
The publisher’s page links to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, Powell’s and other stores, and libraries lend the ebook through Libby. There is no audiobook of any book in the series. Only Calkins’s two later Speakeasy mysteries have been recorded.
Susanna Calkins on How the Book Began
Susanna Calkins was born in Philadelphia in 1971 and lives near Chicago. She has a PhD in history from Purdue University and has taught and worked at Northwestern University; today she works at Rosalind Franklin University. She has talked about the book’s origin in several interviews. As a graduate student she read 17th-century murder ballads and kept meeting the same story. A young woman is found dead in a field. In her pocket is a letter from the man who had asked her to meet him there. Calkins wondered who the woman was, and whether the man named in the letter had really killed her. The novel grew out of those questions.
She wrote it over about ten years, in half-hour bursts, and finished it in 2010. Its first title was Monster at the Gate. Her second series, the Speakeasy Murders, is set in 1920s Chicago. It has two books, Murder Knocks Twice (2019) and The Fate of a Flapper (2020).
Quick Facts
| Title | A Murder at Rosamund’s Gate |
|---|---|
| Author | Susanna Calkins |
| Series | Lucy Campion Mysteries, book 1 of 7 |
| First published | April 23, 2013, Minotaur Books |
| Setting | London, 1665–1666 |
| Sleuth | Lucy, a chambermaid |
| Audiobook | No audiobook edition found (October 2026) |
| Award | Macavity finalist, Sue Feder Historical Mystery Award (2014) |
| Next book | From the Charred Remains |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it a cozy mystery?
Partly. It has an amateur sleuth and a household full of suspects, but prison and the gallows make it darker than a typical cozy.
Is Rosamund’s Gate a real place?
Not as far as we know. In the novel it is a park where lovers meet, and it is where Bessie’s body is found.
What should I read next?
Calkins names Anne Perry and Rhys Bowen among her models. Try Rhys Bowen’s Her Royal Spyness or Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs, and see our historical cozy mysteries page.