Review: The Laws of Murder (Charles Lenox #8) by Charles Finch

Charles Lenox has just given up his Parliament seat to pursue his dream….running his own full time detective agency.

He has high hopes for this new agency. It’s essentially the first of its kind and with all the assistance he has provided to Scotland Yard over the years, surely the referrals will come.

Lenox and his colleagues have let a building and are currently taking new clients, things are looking promising. But while the others are bringing in steady business….Lenox is not.

What happened to all the potential referrals from the Yard and his friends within the agency?

Well,  it appears someone is trying to sabotage Lenox’s new agency. One day the great mystery is answered–Inspector Jenkins, Lenox’s long time friend, is quoted in the paper denouncing the agency, Lenox is crushed and business comes to a grinding halt.

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Review: Bellman and Black: A Ghost Story by Diane Setterfield

As a child, William Bellman makes one tragic mistake that will haunt him all his life. Though it doesn’t seem like a big deal, William soon finds out what a big deal it was.

William is showing off for a few of his friends. He has perfected his slingshot and to impress his friends he claims he can hit a rook (of the raven family) with absolute precision.

When he kills the bird with that fateful shot, he has no idea it will be the mistake that alters his life and the lives of those present that day forever and those that William cares for most.

The Bellman family has done quite well for itself over the years. They are widely known for their textile mill throughout the country side. When William reaches adulthood, his uncle takes him under his wind and start showing him the ropes of mill operation.

His uncle’s own son has zero interest in the running of the mill so that means that when the uncle dies the mill for go to his son but he will need a trusted advisor to run it for him.

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Review: Mrs Poe by Lynn Cullen

The greatest love affairs are between two souls that speak to each other in a language that no one else but them can understand.

On a fateful night in 1845, Frances Osgood meets the most famous writer in all of New York society, the dark and mysterious Edgar Poe. From the moment they are introduced, Frances can’t help but feel a strange and unexplainable connection to Poe.

A writer herself, they run in the same circles of New York society. At the time, Frances’s philandering husband has taken up with a rich divorcee and basically abandoned Frances and their children.

Frances and the girls are staying at the home of the Bartlett’s while Frances tries to get more of her poetry published so they can have money.

Meanwhile, Poe’s fame is taking off with the success of his poem, The Raven. Poe is also married and has been for some time, but his wife is in ill health and has been for a number of years. He has not been especially happy with Virginia Poe for some time, but like everything in his life he just accepts it and moves on…..until he meets Frances Osgood.

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Review: Marking Time (The Immortal Descendants #1) by April White

Seventeen year old Saira Elian’s life is a lonely one. Her mom tends to disappear randomly for weeks at a time and when she returns they often pack up and move to a new location.

She hasn’t met her father nor does she really know anything about him and she basically has never known anyone she could call a friend.

Saira spends her free time tagging the underground around Venice Beach until one night she over hears a conversation she shouldn’t.

The next thing she knows she is being chased by a group of men when the police pick her up and arrest her. With her mother gone again she is taken in by her grandmother who lives in England.

When Saira arrives at Elian Manor she is in for a rude awakening, her grandmother begrudgingly took her in and she intends to make Saira into a proper lady while she stays under her roof.

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Review: Murder as a Fine Art by David Morrell

Terror has gripped the foggy streets of London in 1854. A family of five has been found brutally murdered–beaten to death with their throats slit–the youngest victim was an infant. Since nothing was taken and the crime scene neatly staged, it can only be considered a crime of the deranged.

Constable Becker was first on the scene, only missing the murderer by a matter of minutes. After raising the alarm, Detective Inspector Sean Ryan arrives and he immediately sees potential in Becker as an assistant.

They gather what few clues were left at the crime scene and realize they aren’t dealing with a mad man, but rather an educated man of means.

The crime itself closely resembles another infamous murder that happened forty three years earlier, The Ratcliffe Highway murders. The famous author Thomas De Quincey also wrote an essay portraying and praising these murders as ‘fine works of art’.

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