On a Desert Shore

January 11, 2016
Fans of traditional whodunits with a closed circle of suspects will enjoy Rizzolo’s fourth historical featuring savvy Bow Street Runner John Chase (after 2014’s Die I Will Not). When Chase was defending the British Empire in the West Indies in 1796, he almost lost his life to yellow fever. A local healer, Joanna, restored him to health. In London 17 years later, he has occasion to help Joanna’s daughter, Marina, whose merchant father, Hugo Garrod, made his fortune in the Caribbean, but he has raised her in England. Garrod is afraid that someone is playing cruel tricks on Marina, leading her to fear she’s cursed, and he hires Chase to get to keep an eye on her. The case ends up being one of murder after several people are poisoned. Chase is aided in his search for the truth by two other well-limned characters, barrister Edward Buckler and writer Penelope Wolfe. Rizzolo nicely evokes the period, but the book works better as a classic murder puzzle than as a probing look at Regency England.

February 1, 2016

Bow Street runner John Chase is hired to protect a young heiress from Jamaica, and Mrs. Penelope Wolfe is engaged to live in the woman's household as an added layer of protection. Together, they must work to uncover a ruthless and diabolical killer. An engrossing fourth historical adventure (after Die I Will Not).

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2016
A Bow Street Runner helps solve a murder at a manor in this Regency tale. John Chase's 20-year career in the Royal Navy ended at the Battle of the Nile when he took a bullet to the knee. Now that he works for Bow Street, he's hired for the personal protection of sugar planter Hugo Garrod. After making a fortune in Jamaica, Garrod brought his mixed-race daughter, Marina, to a lavish estate in Clapham with the idea of marrying her to his possible heir, his wastrel nephew Ned Honeycutt. Instead he gave Marina a London debut that disappointingly ended without a proposal, and now Honeycutt may be a marital candidate after all. Someone's trying to frighten Marina with chicken bones and grave dirt, tokens she knew about from her mother, one of Garrod's former slaves and a practitioner of a native religion. But Marina's mother, with whom Chase has his own connection, is far away. When he comes to Garrod's manor, he sees that Marina is very vulnerable, given to sleepwalking, frequently dosed with laudanum, and surrounded by her father's unwelcoming family. Chase, who feels like an outsider himself, is glad to have his friends as fellow houseguests: melancholic barrister Edward Buckle, resourceful pamphleteer Mrs. Penelope Wolf, and her illegitimate half brother, who's instantly smitten with Marina. At a lavish reception, the host serves tea that makes him, Honeycutt's sister, and the estate's vicar violently ill. Garrod begs Buckler to rewrite his will but dies before the barrister can help, leaving Chase, Buckler, and Penelope with a temporarily missing key, an unlabeled bottle, and West Indian seed-pod beads as the only evidence of who stood to benefit the most from Garrod's death. This fourth outing for Chase (Die I Will Not, 2014, etc.) blends thwarted love, class and racial issues, partly convincing historical details, and solid sleuthing.

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