Trace of Deceit

A Trace of Deceit- Karen Odden
William Morrow/HarperCollins Publishers
Release Date: December 17, 2019

Rating:
📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: A young painter digs beneath the veneer of Victorian London’s art world to learn the truth behind her brother’s murder... 

Edwin is dead. That’s what Inspector Matthew Hallam of Scotland Yard tells Annabel Rowe when she discovers him searching her brother’s flat for clues. While the news is shocking, Annabel can’t say it’s wholly unexpected, given Edwin’s past as a dissolute risk-taker and art forger, although he swore he’d reformed. After years spent blaming his reckless behavior for their parents’ deaths, Annabel is now faced with the question of who murdered him—because Edwin’s death was both violent and deliberate. A valuable French painting he’d been restoring for an auction house is missing from his studio: find the painting, find the murderer. But the owner of the artwork claims it was destroyed in a warehouse fire years ago.

As a painter at the prestigious Slade School of Art and as Edwin’s closest relative, Annabel makes the case that she is crucial to Matthew’s investigation. But in their search for the painting, Matthew and Annabel trace a path of deceit and viciousness that reaches far beyond the elegant rooms of the auction house, into an underworld of politics, corruption, and secrets someone will kill to keep.  

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Annabel Rowe has been slowly working to reconcile with her brother Edwin, but one day she arrives at his flat to discover two detectives there with the news that Edwin is dead.  Murdered, with a valuable painting he had been cleaning now missing.  Annabel needs to understand what happened to her brother to gain some closure on his death (and life) and she convinces Inspector Matthew Hallam that her knowledge of the art world and Edwin will prove valuable to discovering his murderer.  But what they discover is the darkness behind the art world, where secrets fester and can prove worth killing for.

A Trace of Deceit is an engrossing Victorian mystery with a strong central figure in Annabel.  A student at the Slade Art School, she is trying to find her place in the masculine world of painting.  She sees herself as an observer instead of a participant in the world and holds herself apart from fellow students and her older brother, trying to prevent herself from being hurt.  But Annabel is only fooling herself- she's a caring, compassionate woman who feels deeply.  Edwin's death hits her hard, but she finds strength in working with Matthew to discover the killer.  She doesn't shy away from hard truths, although she might not think of them as automatically as a more cynical person would.  And there are plenty of hard truths about Edwin that she has to accept in order to understand his murder.

Where Odden's A Dangerous Duet brought readers into intimate contact with the city of London, A Trace of Deceit focuses on its people.  Like Annabel herself, we focus on how they interact, what they show, and what they hide.  We see through the eyes of a painter the light and the dark that make up the world around Annabel and Matthew.  Odden uses this not only to give the reader brilliant descriptions of the lives around our heroes, but to plant red herrings and clues with equal strength, forcing the reader to continually adjust their view of what seems, at first, to be a simple murder.  

Engrossing from start to finish, A Trace of Deceit will keep readers guessing from start to finish, in a book impossible to put down until the last stone is unturned and the last secret is revealed.  Full of heart and empathy, Odden explores how individuals deal with personal and family tragedies, betrayals, and secrets.  A must read for fans of Sherry Thomas, Anne Perry, and Victorian mystery lovers everywhere.

Dangerous Duet

A Dangerous Duet- Karen Odden
William Morrow/Harper Collins
Release Date: November 6, 2018

Rating:
📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Nineteen-year-old Nell Hallam lives in a modest corner of Mayfair with her brother Matthew, an inspector at Scotland Yard. An exceptionally talented pianist, she aspires to attend the Royal Academy; but with tuition beyond their means, Nell sets out to earn the money herself—by playing piano in a popular Soho music hall. And the fact that she will have to disguise herself as a man and slip out at night to do it doesn’t deter her.

Spending evenings at the Octavian is like entering an alternate world, one of lively energy, fascinating performers, raucous patrons—and dark secrets. And when Nell stumbles upon the operations of an infamous crime ring working in the shadows of the music hall, she is drawn into a conspiracy that stretches the length of London. To further complicate matters, she has begun to fall for the hall owner's charismatic son, Jack, who has secrets of his own. 

The more Nell becomes a part of the Octavian’s world, the more she risks the relationships with the people she loves. And when another performer is left for dead in an alley as a warning, she realizes her future could be in jeopardy in more ways than one.

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Nell Hallam, nineteen and desperate to be accepted to the Royal Academy to further her future as a pianist, doesn't let convention stop her from reaching her goals.  To earn the needed tuition she plays piano at the Octavian Music Hall- which requires her to pretend she's a man.  There she makes friends with an unusual assortment of people, including trapeze artist Marceline and handyman Jack- who just happens to be the owner's son.  After finding Marceline beaten in an alley one night, Nell realizes there is more going on at the Octavian than music and a good time.  Nell needs to help her Scotland Yard Inspector brother take down a vicious ring of thieves and murderers- including dirty cops and Jack's own father- while keeping her friends and their secrets safe.

Nell is a woman ahead of her time, willing to step beyond the boundaries of convention to reach her goals and protect the people she loves.  Mature and rational, she is also willing to listen to her heart when it comes to the people around her.  Through her eyes we see people not only as they present themselves to the world, but also the complicated, multiple layers beneath their masks. Primary and secondary characters alike unfold layer by layer, all complex people with hopes, dreams, fears, and motives beyond what is seen on the surface.

Odden's debut novel, A Lady in the Smoke, introduced readers to a wonderful new author who knows how to describe London and the surrounding areas as if it is one of the book's characters and that talent is even more in evidence here.  A Dangerous Duet vividly brings readers into the double life of Victorian  London: beautiful Mayfair homes and first rate museums alongside the dirty alleys and rickety buildings of Soho.  You smell the bread being sold, feel the cobblestones beneath your feet, and hear the busy traffic on the streets. You check your hands for splinters, feel the smoothness of piano keys, and feel your heart leap in your chest right along with Nell.

A fast-paced novel blending the perfect amount of suspense and mystery with a deft touch of romance and music, A Dangerous Duet is a perfect book for mystery lovers!     

Curious Affair of the Witch of Wayside Cross

The Curious Affair of the Witch at Wayside Cross (from the casebook of Jesperson & Lane)- Lisa Tuttle
Hydra/ Random House
Release Date: November 28, 2017

Rating:
📚

Warning: Spoilers Ahead

Synopsis: “Witch!” cries the young man after stumbling unexpectedly into the London address of the consulting-detective partnership of Mr. Jasper Jesperson and Miss Lane. He makes the startling accusation while pointing toward Miss Lane . . . then he drops dead. Thus begins the strangest case yet to land—quite literally—on the doorstep of Jesperson and Lane.

According to the coroner, Charles Manning died of a heart attack—despite being in perfect health. Could he have been struck down by a witch’s spell? The late Mr. Manning’s address book leads Jesperson and Lane to the shrieking pits of Aylmerton, an ancient archaeological site reputed to be haunted by a vengeful ghost. There they sift through the local characters, each more suspicious than the last: Manning’s associate, Felix Ott, an English folklore enthusiast; Reverend Ringer, a fierce opponent of superstition; and the Bulstrode sisters, a trio of beauties with a reputation for witchcraft.

But when an innocent child goes missing, suddenly Jesperson and Lane aren’t merely trying to solve one murder—they’re racing to prevent another.

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When a man falls dead at their front door, private detectives Jesperson and Lane decide to discover why he died and what brought him to their door in the first place.  The coroner says it was a heart attack but Charles Manning apparently had a great deal of interest in witches- could he have angered one into killing him?  The detectives travel to the countryside of Aylmerton where superstition and folklore live side by side with more 'modern' thinking and religion, where Manning was rumored to be courting a young witch, and where people are highly suspicious of outsiders.  Soon one questionable death turns into several and Jesperson and Lane have their hands full trying to prevent another.

Advertised as a paranormal Sherlock Holmes story, the Curious Affair promised to be full of mystery,  magic, and brilliant detectives.  I found it to contain very little of any of those.  Throughout the book you find yourself wondering if the magic and paranormal advertised are actually believed in and real, like Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, or a mere ruse with a devious but perfectly scientific explanation, like Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles. Even a confirmed fairy siting doesn't really answer the question as far as the rest of the characters go.  Does Manning's friend Felix Ott genuinely believe in returning the Old Religions and gods to England or is it a way to trick money from others?  Did he kill Manning over a business disagreement? 

The mystery itself was never more than mildly interesting to me, which was surprising.  You'd think a man dropping dead of unknown causes would lead to a pretty good whodunit.  But so many other things began to get piled on to the plot that sometimes you forgot about Manning altogether.  Yet none of the other mysteries- several other unexplained deaths and then the disappearance of an infant- really kept the plot moving for me either.  The book mostly revolved around a series of unlikeable characters who went from country hospitality to chilly and insulted in an instant.  Diana Bulstrode (the supposed witch of Wayside Cross) was the only character I found at all interesting and even she had a tendency to become annoying quickly.  The main characters of Jasper Jesperson and Miss Lane never gained any depth or particular background to make them interesting, unique, or likable. Even Miss Lane, who gives a Watson-like first person account of the case, isn't much more than a cipher to tell the story.  We get a brief and politely social background to her life before becoming a detective and more than halfway through the book are finally told her first name (although after finding out what it is you understand why she doesn't advertise it).  But the reader gets no real backstory to them: no explanation of how Miss Lane met Jespserson, why they decided to become detectives, what their relationship is, or anything else about them.  Maybe some of this was mentioned in Tuttle's first book (The Curious Affair of the Somnabulist and the Psychic Thief) but I haven't read that book.  Nor, after the Witch of Wayside Cross, do I really care to.  While things get interesting at the very end, by the time everything is revealed I was left with the feeling that all the murder victims got what they deserved and only vaguely sympathetic of the lives ruined in the process.

Tuttle does a good job describing the English countryside, but neither the characters nor the mysteries stood out to me as a way to make the book enjoyable.  Doyle enthusiasts and paranormal mystery lovers alike should probably skip this addition to the inspired-by-Sherlock shelves.  Weak and unlikeable characters overshadow what could have been an interesting set of mysteries to leave a book that sounded better in the description than in the reading.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGallery in exchange for an honest review