A Fatal Legacy

Charlotte Vassell

WHEN Digby Coombe-Watson – the reluctant owner of his odious Victorian ancestor’s crumbling museum of purloined colonial ‘horrors’ – is found murdered, Met Detective Inspector Caius Beauchamp is soon on duty and unravelling a case that has ties uncomfortably close to home.

If you like your crime mysteries to have all the complex detective work and exquisitely drawn characters of Agatha Christie but with an original and insightful voice, an acidly satirical edge, and a decidedly 21^st century vibe, then treat yourself to the fourth book of Charlotte Vassell’s fun, quirky and entertaining whodunit series.

After the runaway success of The Other Half, The In Crowd and A Deadly Inheritance, award-winning Vassell (below) delivers another gripping, high-energy police procedural set within the upper echelons of London’s rich and powerful milieu, and exploring contemporary issues like fame, celebrity, online dating and the deadly dangers of obsession. It’s a tale with disparate plot threads which draw almost magically together and unfold against an intriguing murder case littered with wickedly incisive social commentary, plenty of twists and turns, and a cast of captivating characters who could only have been conjured up by a writer who also trained to tread the boards.

After discovering that his late grandfather, the Jamaican son of a second son, had inherited a baronetcy, and coming to terms with his family’s consequent change in fortune, the last thing Irish-Jamaican Caius Beauchamp needs is the embarrassment of a bust-up at the Chelsea Flower Show.

His milliner girlfriend Callie’s ex-boyfriend turned up drunk as she was filming and started a fight with handsome hunk Caius, all of which had since gone viral on social media and was causing ‘a collective swoon.’ Fortunately for Caius, his chirpy fellow officers, DS Matt Cheung and DC Amy Noakes, are distracted from their teasing by reports of a murder at the Horatio Combe Institute in Camden.

Owner and curator Digby Coombe-Watson has been found poisoned by hemlock on the floor of the institute that houses his 19^th century adventurer great-grandfather’s motley collection of, among other grisly displays, dead animals and shrunken human heads garnered from gallivanting all over the empire.

The unsuspecting Digby’s demise began when he fixed up an online candlelit dinner date for two with a mysterious woman called Isolde at the institute despite those important rules about first dates… don’t talk about your ex, ask lots of questions, and always meet in a public place.

Digby, who regarded himself as ‘an intellectual who only cares about the pursuit of knowledge and the preservation of history,’ didn’t think the rules applied to him. And he had other worries, chiefly how to get rid of his great-grandfather’s dilapidated emporium, and whether his family would let him. So he ignored the rules, and invited someone in. Now he has been murdered…

Armed only with a PO Box address for the visitor calling herself Isolde, and a case that involves false identities, costumes, and catfishing, Caius and his team have a sinister murder to solve… and Digby’s death won't be the last.

Vassell’s addictive murder mystery plunges readers into both the moneyed world of the present and into some unexpected corners of medieval history whilst fearlessly puncturing the pretensions, entitlement and conceit of the British class system, and exquisitely nailing the faux manners and mores of the rich and famous. And what a clever, complex story it is as Caius pursues an elusive killer and Callie’s work sees her tangled up in some ghostly goings-on, all brought seamlessly to life by the sharpest writing and an entertaining blend of descriptive language, lively dialogue and an irresistible brand of sardonic humour.

As Caius and Callie’s romance moves into new territory, Vassell’s refreshingly different series continues to serve up familiar tropes like red herrings, intriguing suspects and page-turning plotting with wit, style and moments of high drama. Add on Caius’s team of charismatic detectives, a fine line in banter, and a tantalising twist in the tail, and you have a clever concoction of crime fiction with a delicious side serving of satire!
(Faber & Faber, paperback, £9.99)

Circle of Days

Ken Follett

FOR almost 5,000 years Stonehenge has passed through different building stages, stood proudly through all weathers, and observed the slings and arrows of British history from its perch on the grassy slopes of Salisbury Plain.

Mystery still surrounds this magnificent edifice, its provenance unknown except that it was built to align with the sun’s rays. But why was it placed exactly there, who constructed it in the form we now see... and how did Bronze Age communities move and handle those giant stones?

It's an ages-old puzzle which master storyteller and bestselling author of the celebrated The Pillars of the Earth series, Ken Follett (pictured below), tackles with his legendary panache, energy, research and a huge helping of imagination. Circle of Days is expansive world-building on a breathtaking scale as this inventive writer brings not only his version of the past to vivid life but treats us to a story which delights with its earthy evocation of a virtually unknown-to-us Neolithic society and dares to envision how that famous stone circle might have been built.

With a laser focus on a small community – bearing names like Scagga, Cog, Wun, Keff and Olf which Follett must have found fun to invent – readers are plunged into the very basic existence of people who live, love, work the land and utilise the natural resources of this area of Salisbury Plain. The result is an entertaining and richly detailed portrait of men and women forever striving for civilisation’s progress but falling prey to the strife, jealousies and hostilities that are the very essence of being human.

In the year 2000 BC, Seft, his father and two older brothers dig pits and mine for flint, the hardest of all stones which, with its sharp cutting edge, is used for everything from axes to arrowheads to knives, and can be traded for essentials like food, clothing and livestock.

But of all his family, Seft is the only one with an exceptional talent working and using flint… his father and brothers are violent, vulgar brutes who hate him and he dreams of leaving them behind and meeting up again with Neen, the kind girl he met and fell in love with at the Spring Rite, one of the festivals held to celebrate the seasons at an ancient wood-based Monument where the Sun Goddess works her magic.

Neen’s family lives in prosperity within the herder community and, as Seft sets out to walk the Great Plain in the high summer heat to trade his stone at the Midsummer Rite and witness the rituals that signal the start of a new year, he hopes an alliance with the girl who left him a parting kiss will offer the escape he so desperately needs.

Meanwhile, Joia, Neen’s younger sister, is a born priestess with a vision and an unmatched ability to lead. As a child, she watches the Midsummer ceremony, enthralled, and dreams of a miraculous new Monument built from the biggest stones to be found in their world. And Joia is already starting to envisage the great stone circle as a grand monument that will last forever and define a civilisation, bringing together the divided tribes of the Plain. It’s a dream that will inspire Seft and become their life’s work.

But trouble is brewing among the hills and woodlands of the Great Plain and when deadly drought ravages the earth, mistrust grows between the herders, farmers and woodlanders until an act of savage violence leads to open warfare between the different communities. With survival now the driving force, will peace and the building of a new stone Monument become just an impossible dream?

Epic is surely the word that best describes this literally monumental tale which runs to 592 pages and colourfully explores how Neolithic society might have functioned… from herders who guard their animals, farmers who work the fertile soil to grow crops, and skilled cleverhands who create and craft, to foraging woodlanders, leather tanners, miners who dig out and fashion flint into tools, and the powerful priestesses who use the sun to mark out the days and seasons, and perform ceremonial rites.

In his trademark attention to detail, Follett also treats readers to imaginative descriptions of the minutae of Bronze Age life as we discover how hide shoes are fashioned, how a rudimentary rope is made to wrap around the giant stones, and how those early craftsmen might have employed their carpentry and stonework skills.

But this is also a living, breathing, and powerfully human story of family, relationships, passion, hatred and intense partisanship as the loyalties of different sections of the community are put to the test and the building of the ancient stone circle, which we now gaze upon with wonder, forms the beating heart of the all the action, drama, heartache, sabotage and natural disasters.

With the sizzling sexual encounters and rituals of a free love society in which marriage is still many centuries away, a unique take on Stonehenge viewed through the eyes of the people who built it, Follett’s gift for making his fiction seem tantalisingly authentic, and a plot that takes in murders, a famine, tribal warfare, and a drought, the distant past has never felt so viscerally alive.
(Quercus, paperback, £10.99)

The Haunting of a Brontë

Amelia Blackwell

WHAT would happen if Georgiana, younger sister of Pride and Prejudice’s swoonworthy hero Fitzwilliam Darcy, met Branwell, the troubled only brother of the famous Brontë sisters, shining stars of the 19th century literary firmament?

It’s an intriguing premise which is tackled with relish by Cornwall-based Amelia Blackwell (pictured below) in the second of her time-travelling Miss Darcy Investigates adventures, part of a debut cosy crime series which began with A Crime Through Time and was inspired by last year’s 250th anniversary celebrations of Jane Austen’s birth.

Taking the leading role in these quirky and original mysteries is the delectable Miss Georgiana Darcy, best known to Austen fans as Mr Darcy’s meek and naïve sister but here transformed into a rather cute but canny detective travelling backwards and forwards through time and space from Pemberley in 1799 to solve murders with a literary twist. And after falling for an Irish security guard named Quinn, a man ‘with an exceptionally pleasing countenance,’ on her first time-travel journey to a film set in Devon in 1995 – where she had to reckon with the misunderstandings and mysteries of life and love in the late 20^th century – we find Georgiana back at Pemberley in 1799 and despairing of ever again meeting her new beau Quinn.

The reason is that her trusty Motorola pager – the precious item that Georgiana found by accident but which has proved to be her passport to ‘the magic of time travel’ – is refusing to re-activate. But she still firmly believes that a ‘higher power’ is sending her to the future to solve mysteries and murders, and ‘promote good over evil.’ 

When the Motorola finally buzzes back to life, Georgiana finds herself in 1845, only forty-six years in the future, and at gloomy Thorp Green Hall in Yorkshire. It’s the home of the ageing Reverend Robinson and his decades younger wife… and also the place where Branwell and Anne Brontë are employed as the children’s tutor and governess. Mistaken for the eldest and troublesome daughter Lydia’s ‘special companion,’ Georgiana settles in but anticipates she has been drawn to Thorp Green Hall for a reason… to investigate another murder. However, even before she discovers the cook’s father dead on a chopping block, Georgiana finds herself entangled in a web of passion, deception, and danger centred on the eccentric, haunted Branwell.

It seems Branwell is engaged in a perilous affair with Mrs Robinson and experiencing a series of sinister omens and terrifying encounters. As Georgiana uncovers the secrets of the house, and learns more about the origins of her time-travelling, she must find the killer and save the Brontë siblings from an evil plot… thus preventing, of course, a most terrible loss to future readers everywhere.

Blackwell’s ingenious blend of crime, time travel, all things Austen-esque, and now the Brontë siblings, delivers an atmospheric murder mystery while allowing readers a fresh and fun perspective on much-loved fictional Austen characters, and a glimpse into the real lives of characters like Anne, youngest of the famous sisters, and the tragic Branwell whose turbulent, alcohol-addicted life ended at the early age of 31.

And Thorp Green Hall and its dark secrets proves to be a deliciously brooding backdrop and a wonderful foil for the unsuspecting Georgiana who must negotiate not just another leap in time but also the scandals, volatile emotions, dangers and eccentricities of the hall’s residents while making discoveries about her own ability to move backwards and forwards through time.

Much of the comedy element comes from Georgiana’s 18^th century upper-class sensibilities coming head-to-head with her growing metamorphosis from ingénue to, if not quite woman of the world, a woman who is at least more self-aware and steadily becoming accustomed to the seemingly murderous ways of a future world.

And once again, Blackwell’s depth of research, including digging out some hidden corners and characters from real history, her clever allusions to the works of Austen, the Brontës, D.H.Lawrence and even Charles Webb’s The Graduate, shine through in this book-powered, time-travelling odyssey. A true literary treat!
(Macmillan, hardback, £18.99)