2014 historical mystery; third in Huber's Lady Darby series
(post-Regency amateur detection). Still shaken by the events of the
previous book, Lady Darby must step forward again when a caretaker is
murdered and a body stolen…
Because it's not a recent body, as might have been had away by
the grave-robbers feeding the demands of the medical schools, but one
that's been in the ground for long enough to become a skeleton. And it
seems that it's being held for ransom, and that this has happened to
other corpses too. Have the grave-robbers come up with a new way to
make money? Or is there something more sinister going on?
Again, though, the mystery isn't the most important thing here, with
most of the resolution being pretty obvious and only one false lead.
Instead, most of the narrative time is given to the relationship
between Lady Darby and Sebastian Gage, the private enquiry agent who's
obviously her destined partner. That relationship comes to something
of a resolution here, after some very obvious obstacles are dealt
with, so I'll be interested to see how the balance may shift in future
books.
But also I'm not carried away enough that I don't notice a misphrasing
like this…
Though the light of day had not yet completely vanished from the
sky, the waning crescent moon already shone on the horizon as we
crested the ridge of land that would lead us down into Shotton Pass.
A waning crescent moon is just ahead of the sun in its movement
across the sky, and so would have set before it.
It's never any great shakes on subtlety or characterisation, but
there's some fun to be had here, probably more for the romance reader
than for the crime-solver.