Today it's my turn on the BlogTour A Portrait of Death by Rhen Garland.
Rhen Garland lives in Somerset, England with her folk-singing, book-illustrating husband, approximately 4000 books, an equal number of ancient movies, and a large flock of stuffed sheep.
She enjoys the countryside, peace, and Prosecco and the works of Ngaio Marsh, Glady Mitchell, John Dickson Carr/Carter Dickson, Agatha Christie, and Terry Pratchett.
"I watch far too many old school murder mystery films, TV series, and 1980s action movies for it to be considered healthy."
"A Portrait of Death" is a murder mystery thriller with paranormal touches set in late Victorian England and is the first book in the Versipellis Mysteries Series.
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Buy A Portrait of Death
About the book
In the quiet English village of Marmis Parva, a weekend house party is organised by a society hostess and all the top names are invited. But this is no ordinary party.
Two men are savagely murdered during the course of the first evening and a young man, presumed dead, returns home after two years imprisonment in South Africa bringing with him proof of treason.
Detective Chief Inspector Elliott Caine’s long-awaited holiday in the Lake District is cancelled as he is brought in to investigate the peculiar nature of the murders. More bodies are discovered and Elliott has to manoeuvre between high society, Government protocols, and the heinous nature of the crimes if he and his old friend Detective Sergeant Abernathy Thorne, are to catch the sadistic killer, and the traitor lurking amongst them.
When Caine’s past comes back to haunt him, will his judgement be too clouded to focus on solving the crime? Will the Boer spy’s identity be uncovered before they can flee? How are these murders connected to another in New York?
Think Downton Abbey with the mystery vibe of a Christie and the murderous intent of a paranormal story with a hint of horror.
A weekend house party turns into a nightmare and the place of intrigue, death, threats, treachery and betrayal. Detective Chief Inspector Elliott Caine has to follow all the leads and disentangle the motives to find the real culprit. It's fair to say he discovers more than he expected to.
The upstairs, downstairs culture plays an important role in the storytelling, especially when it comes to the hierarchy in both of the structures and class elements. The intricate structures that determine the life they lead. How the vulnerable become victims of those who use their power status to oppress and abuse.
It's a Victorian crime mystery with elements of the paranormal and the mysterious brutality of a modern killer. Murder committed in the form of a shadow. A faceless unknown entity that comes and goes without leaving proof of existence.
At times it seemed as if less would be more, because it is fast-paced with lots of characters and different threads and the beginning takes the reader to different time sequences.
Garland brings multiple genres together in this crime mystery, which is set in the late 19th century, but often has the feel of a more vicious and modern crime read. The scenes with the murderer and the crimes give off this feel of something very dark and intense. It's quite interesting how the author sets the imagery of gruesome and bloody scenes without relying on gratuitous details and yet manages to instill this feeling of unseen and very much imagined horror.
Buy A Portrait of Death (Versipellis Mysteries) at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Buy Amazon com.
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