October 15, 2021
Victorian London is a breeding ground for mystery, murder, and the macabre. November 1890. Crime scene photographer and sometime sleuth Sarah Barrett reels from the news that her beloved father, Benjamin Bain, has been arrested for the murder of Ellen Casey after decades as a fugitive. Can she vindicate him by finding the real killer? Over five previous mysteries, most recently Portrait of Peril (2021), Rowland has developed a large cast of interesting regulars, so her plot moves deliberately as she reintroduces them and their backstories. Sarah's been married to her faithful lover, DS Thomas Barrett of Scotland Yard, for a month. Her father's plight has brought Sarah closer to her half sister, Sally, though their relationship remains bumpy. Sarah's closest friend, Lord Hugh Staunton, disowned by his family and ostracized by his friends because of his homosexuality, suffers from depression due to a crippling injury. It takes Sarah; Fitzmorris, Hugh's loyal valet; and psychologist Dr. Joshua Lewes to restore him. Mick O'Reilly, teenage street urchin-turned-sidekick, is riding the emotional roller coaster of first love with the beautiful Anjali, who works at the Cremorne Gardens, a strange amalgam of theater, circus, and freak show. As the trial proceeds, Sarah and company are brought in to investigate a bizarre and sensitive case, the murder of Pinkerton detective Katherine Oliver. The prime suspect is Queen Victoria's grandson, the wild child Prince Eddy. Rowland's portrait of Victorian London is so immersive that new readers will be eager to hang in and get all the narrative threads straight. Series fans will delight at the updates to the lives of her charismatic cast. A Grand Guignol treat, dazzling and lurid.
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November 8, 2021
At the start of Rowland’s convoluted sixth Victorian mystery (after 2021’s Portrait of Peril), crime scene photographer Sarah Bain and her new husband, Det. Sgt. Thomas Barrett, are riding the London underground in November 1890 when their train derails. In helping to rescue the injured, they discover a strangled corpse. The victim is New Yorker Katherine Oliver, a Pinkerton agent in Britain searching for a vanished American heiress. The photographs on Oliver’s state-of-the-art Kodak camera were taken at the Cremorne Gardens, a derelict London pleasure park, and one depicts Prince Eddy, Queen Victoria’s libidinous grandson. Bain and Barrett discover that three former circus performers offering new attractions at the Cremorne have falsified their names and histories, while the prince’s visits to the site using a false name suggest that scandal awaits the royal family. Meanwhile, Bain also faces Barrett’s entanglement with his former fiancée and the trial of her father for a rape and murder she worries he did indeed commit. The development and denouement of the myriad story lines can feel confusing, hasty, and implausible. This jumbled outing isn’t Rowland’s best. Agent: Pam Ahearn, Ahearn Agency.