Shades of trouble on Pompeii's slopes!
In the Shadow of Vesuvius (Lady Emily mysteries #14)
by Tasha Alexander
The past casts many a shadow in the lee of Vesuvius. Colin is confronted by his past and Emily's confidence is frayed as murder spreads it's wings on a dig at Pompei.
Emily's friend Ivy asked Emily to accompany her to Pompeii. Ivy's husband, concerned about the two women traveling alone, with a clever sleight of hand, was able to inveigle King Edward VII to release Colin from his protection duties in order to join them.
In a reconstructed dining room at the Pompei dig, archaeologists have formed plaster casts of a group of the long perished inhabitants giving tourists a window into the terrors of those moments. When Ivy comments on the unusualness of one of the group of ancient figures having sideburns, it's but a moment before Colin pokes at the plaster with his penknife to discover that the body displayed is very much recent .
Alternating with the mystery Emily becomes involved in, we follow the path of a young Greek woman who along with her father is a slave to a wealthy family living in Pompeii prior to the eruption of Mt Vesuvius. She is a close friend to the daughter of the house and a poet.
Initially I felt the plot was lack luster. It seemed just so so. I was also annoyed by what I saw as a storyline interruption, switching from 1902 to A.D. 79. Later, as Emily battled through what was a major upheaval to hers and Colin's lives, I became very much involved in their plight and the poet's tale. As the two stories wove together, I was once again was struck by Alexander's ability to give us a solid murder mystery with something a little different.
I did not see the ending coming. A good thing!
I was also much struck by the epigraph Alexander opened the story with. So fitting when taken in context! Yet what does it say about attitudes to life?
"Of the many misfortunes that have occurred in this world, no others have given posterity such joy. —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, writing about Pompeii."
A St. Martin's Press ARC via NetGalley
****
by Tasha Alexander
Emily's friend Ivy asked Emily to accompany her to Pompeii. Ivy's husband, concerned about the two women traveling alone, with a clever sleight of hand, was able to inveigle King Edward VII to release Colin from his protection duties in order to join them.
In a reconstructed dining room at the Pompei dig, archaeologists have formed plaster casts of a group of the long perished inhabitants giving tourists a window into the terrors of those moments. When Ivy comments on the unusualness of one of the group of ancient figures having sideburns, it's but a moment before Colin pokes at the plaster with his penknife to discover that the body displayed is very much recent .
Alternating with the mystery Emily becomes involved in, we follow the path of a young Greek woman who along with her father is a slave to a wealthy family living in Pompeii prior to the eruption of Mt Vesuvius. She is a close friend to the daughter of the house and a poet.
Initially I felt the plot was lack luster. It seemed just so so. I was also annoyed by what I saw as a storyline interruption, switching from 1902 to A.D. 79. Later, as Emily battled through what was a major upheaval to hers and Colin's lives, I became very much involved in their plight and the poet's tale. As the two stories wove together, I was once again was struck by Alexander's ability to give us a solid murder mystery with something a little different.
I did not see the ending coming. A good thing!
I was also much struck by the epigraph Alexander opened the story with. So fitting when taken in context! Yet what does it say about attitudes to life?
"Of the many misfortunes that have occurred in this world, no others have given posterity such joy. —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, writing about Pompeii."
A St. Martin's Press ARC via NetGalley
****
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