Keith Miles is probably best recognised by readers under the pen name of Edward Marston. He writes several well-received historical mysteries spanning the 11th century through to the 19th century. His website is www.edwardmarston.com
James Richie has a day out with his son, Wilbur, whom he collects from the home of his ex-wife. Father and son are later found dead on the beach, victims of a double stabbing. Leading the investigation is Detective Inspector Toni Kemp, an experienced female officer. When three other victims die in exactly the same way – husband, wife, son – she realises that a serial killer is at work.
The focus of the investigation shifts to Blacklock House, a country mansion with a faded grandeur now converted into flats. Its seven long-term residents include Barbara Major, a researcher for a famous crime writer, whose name she refuses to reveal; Lady Erskine, who was born in the house and who acts as if she owns it; and Rex Lomax, a retired barrister who specialised in defending murder suspects and who has recently engaged handsome Timothy Mew as his companion to take him to church, go on outings and do light housekeeping. There is also a married couple, the Burnetts, both doctors though only the wife is still working.
Kemp is able to gain valuable information about the place from her friend Frederica (“Freddy”) Power, who delivers fish to the house. Freddy knows all about the tensions and feuds between the residents there. When one of them, Garry Haslem, is stabbed to death, the pressure on Kemp intensifies and she starts to shoplift again. She has a weakness for Snickers bars. Everyone in the house has a motive to kill Haslam, as do Freddy the Fishmonger and Martha Merry, a Newhaven hairdresser, who numbers some of the Blacklock contingent among her customers. Kemp has done her homework on serial killers. Dennis Nilson, Harold Shipman, Peter Sutcliffe, Myra Hindley and Rose West all get a mention in a narrative that has endless twists and turns.
Lesley Thomson’s delicious new novel is both a country house murder story and a subtle reappraisal of the genre. Its underlying theme is loneliness, as signalled by the quotation from Tennyson’s poem, Mariana, a woman cast aside by the man who agreed to marry her, and, in her grief, wishing that she were dead. Rex Lomax pays for a live-in companion who works for fifteen hours a week and fills an empty corner in his life. And most of the other characters yearn for someone special who will come to their rescue, providing continuous, heart-warming, undemanding companionship - perhaps even a Detective Inspector needs that.
