An encompassing Victorian murder mystery!
The Woman in the Veil (Victorian Mystery #4)
by Laura Joh Rowland
Rowland has that special gift of placing the reader steadfastly not only in the times and location of the story but firmly in the mind of the major character.
Sarah Bain, daughter of a wanted child killer and a gifted photographer is now herself a photographer, who along with her friends, street urchin Mick O'Reilly and Lord Hugh Staunton, is working for the Daily World newspaper.
Always there's a delicate balance between finding the story that will satisfy Sir Gerald Mariner and his paper's readers, and having to scrape a living.
It's 1890 and Sarah is called to the scene of a dead naked woman sprawled on the banks of the Thames River, surrounded by raucous witnesses. "The river laps at her, covering her legs up to her knees with foam. She looks like a mermaid that has washed ashore—a wounded mermaid." Startlingly, Sarah discovers she is barely alive! The injured victim remains in a coma. The story is broken under the heading Sleeping Beauty.
And this is the beginning of not only a tortured search for the woman's identity, but the pursuit of Sarah by the dreadfully vindictive Inspector Reid who has a deep and abiding hatred and grudge against her. Fueled by the promotion of Sarah's fiancé Detective Sergeant Thomas Barrett over himself, Reid does all he can to bring Barrett down and implicate Sarah as a murderer.
Whilst uncovering Sleeping Beauty's secrets, Sara discovers more about her own family--all disturbing!
I do admire the way Rowland leads us along, revealing more information about Sarah and her birth family, and about the disparate people she has now made her own family. Brick by brick, a more complete picture of Sarah's background is emerging. As surprising to Sarah as it is to us.
Rowland so excels at this type of complex storytelling, that revels in wicked reversals and charged situations. A first rate twisty, dark Victorian murder mystery that kept me breathless.
A Crooked Lane ARC via NetGalley
*****
by Laura Joh Rowland
Sarah Bain, daughter of a wanted child killer and a gifted photographer is now herself a photographer, who along with her friends, street urchin Mick O'Reilly and Lord Hugh Staunton, is working for the Daily World newspaper.
Always there's a delicate balance between finding the story that will satisfy Sir Gerald Mariner and his paper's readers, and having to scrape a living.
It's 1890 and Sarah is called to the scene of a dead naked woman sprawled on the banks of the Thames River, surrounded by raucous witnesses. "The river laps at her, covering her legs up to her knees with foam. She looks like a mermaid that has washed ashore—a wounded mermaid." Startlingly, Sarah discovers she is barely alive! The injured victim remains in a coma. The story is broken under the heading Sleeping Beauty.
And this is the beginning of not only a tortured search for the woman's identity, but the pursuit of Sarah by the dreadfully vindictive Inspector Reid who has a deep and abiding hatred and grudge against her. Fueled by the promotion of Sarah's fiancé Detective Sergeant Thomas Barrett over himself, Reid does all he can to bring Barrett down and implicate Sarah as a murderer.
Whilst uncovering Sleeping Beauty's secrets, Sara discovers more about her own family--all disturbing!
I do admire the way Rowland leads us along, revealing more information about Sarah and her birth family, and about the disparate people she has now made her own family. Brick by brick, a more complete picture of Sarah's background is emerging. As surprising to Sarah as it is to us.
Rowland so excels at this type of complex storytelling, that revels in wicked reversals and charged situations. A first rate twisty, dark Victorian murder mystery that kept me breathless.
A Crooked Lane ARC via NetGalley
*****
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