The year is 1900, responding to a desperate plea from an old friend, Elliott, Giselle, and Thorne, accompanied by Veronique the Labrador, travel from England to New Zealand to unravel a new and complex mystery.
For his daughter’s twenty first birthday, Millionaire philanthropist Octavius Damant orchestrates a weekend party aboard the Taniwha, a luxurious paddle steamer moored in the primordial and isolated landscape of Milford Sound.
Several high society guests are invited to their remote home for the celebrations; Sir Wesley Eade, society lawyer and his beautiful but icy mistress Lady Leonora Carlton-Cayce, Dona Carla Riva, a flamboyant Brazilian dancer, and Carolyn Nolloth, O.D’s estranged sister-in-law who has a great love of other people’s money.
But O.D is the subject of persecution; a series of anonymous letters accuse him of past crimes and threaten the life of his daughter unless he gives in to their creator’s poisonous demands.
Elliott, Giselle, and Thorne discover the odds stacked against them when an unforeseen murder is committed, and they find themselves trapped aboard the Taniwha with a killer who will seemingly stop at nothing to achieve their ends.
As the body count rises, they must unravel the clues and piece together a devilish jigsaw that includes blackmail, extortion, desire, and the reappearance of the fabulous Larkspur Diamond, a gemstone with a past as murky and blood soaked as that of the relentless killer on board.
Set in the late Victorian era, with a touch of the odd, and a twist of the macabre, “Death in the Sound” continues the crime solving, paranormal escapades of Elliott Caine, Giselle Du’Lac, and Abernathy Thorne.
Book One, “A Portrait of Death” was released in 2018.
Review:
This is the second book in the Versipellis series of Victorian era mysteries, classic whodunnits with a paranormal twist. Death in the Sound finds us on a boat in Milford Sound in the South Island of New Zealand, where blackmail and betrayal disrupt the twenty-first birthday of a sheltered young woman.
Our merry band of protagonists are on board to investigate threatening letters to the host, but are quickly drawn in as the body count rises.
This is a delightfully twisty mystery with false leads and little clues, so that as one puzzle becomes clear, another presents itself for solving. I enjoyed the clever way that everything fitted together and was gradually revealed, as well as the little touches of local colour and Victorian society.
The main place where this interesting plot falls down is the editing. It really needed a good copy-editor who could point out the difference between Gaelic (Irish) and Gallic (French), the correct spelling of discreet, and who could chop up the run-on sentences that sometimes took over entire paragraphs. Once the plot gets going, it is easier to ignore these errors, but I found them distracting.
I also found the paranormal side of the mystery surfaced in a rather expositional way. While it adds something different to the mystery, it also slowed down the plot. There were also a few loose ends to extrenuous storylines that could've well been cut.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book and would like to read more in the series, but sincerely hope the author engages a good editor and cuts back on the exposition.
Three stars.
Purchase Links:
Kindle https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B082Q39R3H
Paperback https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1674868367
Amazon.com - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082Q39R3H
Author Bio:
Rhen Garland lives in Somerset, England with her folk-singing, book-illustrating husband, approximately 4000 books, an equal number of ancient movies, and a large collection of passive-aggressive Tomtes.
She enjoys the countryside, peace, and Prosecco and the works of Ngaio Marsh, Glady Mitchell, John Dickson Carr/Carter Dickson, Agatha Christie, Simon R Green, and Terry Pratchett.
"I watch far too many old school murder mystery films, TV series, and 1980s action movies for it to be considered healthy."
"Death in the Sound" is a murder mystery thriller with paranormal touches set in late Victorian England and is the second book in the Versipellis Mysteries Series, book one “A Portrait of Death” was released in 2018.
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