Supping with the Devil

Starred review from August 18, 2014
Set in 1976, Spencer’s superior eighth mystery featuring Det. Chief Insp. Monika Paniatowski (after 2013’s Death’s Dark Shadow) finds the Whitebridge copper shunted aside by her vindictive boss to serve as adviser to Gervaise de Courtney, 13th Earl of Ridley, who’s sponsoring a Woodstock-like festival on his estate. Both the earl’s family and the police foresee trouble that they’ll be powerless to prevent. Meanwhile, the activities of a host of other characters—a rider in a motorcycle gang doing concert security, members of Paniatowski’s unhappy squad, an unemployed journalist who has just published a career-changing story, a teen singer expecting to make it big—ratchet up the tension long before violence erupts. When it does, Monika’s replacement has a suspect in mind—and demands evidence to prove it. Most of the violence is off-camera, but fierce all the same. Spencer has devised a thrill ride that’s not easily forgotten.

September 9, 2013
More action than detective story, Spencer’s 10th mystery featuring Insp. Sam Blackstone (after 2012’s Blackstone and the Great War) starts better than it finishes. A prologue dated December 16, 1916, finds the Scotland Yarder on the run and reduced to fighting for survival as a London street person. The main narrative, which opens a week earlier, reveals how Blackstone got into this fix. The new head of Special Branch, Superintendent Brigham, tells Blackstone to deliver £25,000 in cash to a German known only as Max in exchange for information on U-boats. Max has asked for Blackstone by name, and he’s forbidden Blackstone to have any backup. As Blackstone fears, the exchange late one night at a London dockyard doesn’t come off as planned. Now a fugitive, Blackstone embarks on an unlikely journey that reunites him with a Russian spy from a previous outing. The introduction of a notorious historical figure doesn’t increase the plot’s plausibility.

October 1, 2014
Chief Constable George Baxter continues to harass DCI Monika Paniatowski. Since the death of his wife in an alcohol-fueled car crash, Baxter has been out to undermine Monika (Death's Dark Shadow, 2014, etc.). Now he's stuck his former lover with an assignment no self-respecting detective would tolerate: acting as adviser to the estate manager of Stamford Hall, where Gervaise de Courtney, 13th Earl of Ridley, plans to host a rock music festival. The assignment has some rewards. Katerina, Countess of Ridley, a Central European refugee who was rescued by her husband from the horrors of the 1968 Prague Spring, is a kindred spirit. And estate manager Edward Bell is compassionate, if somewhat oversold on loyalty to his employers. But the limitations of her position prey on Monika. She's forbidden by the earl to meet with the folks he's handpicked to handle security for the festival-a motorcycle gang called the Devil's Disciples-because they don't like police. And Baxter insists she stay at Stamford Hall 24/7 for the duration of the festival. While she's stuck at the manor house, there's a juicy murder to investigate back in Whitebridge. The body of unemployed tabloid journalist Terry Lewis turns up in an alley. Monika's team is temporarily assigned to the grotesquely misnamed DCI Wellbeloved, who immediately tries to divide and conquer. He suggests to DI Colin Beresford that DC Jack Crane will soon snatch his job and tells DS Kate Meadows that she has the spark Beresford lacks. Naturally, they want Monika back ASAP. But will a solution to Lewis' murder while Monika languishes behind the gates of Stamford Hall help their old boss, or will it just cement Wellbeloved's position as their new leader? It's high time for Baxter to patch things up with Paniatowski, before their continuing feud overshadows Spencer's deft plotting.

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September 1, 2014

Trying to avoid career assassination by her chief constable, Monika Paniatowski (Death's Dark Shadows) is assigned to cover the Earl of Ridley's rock concert. Who will destroy the festival first? The motorcycle gang hired for security or the Dowager Countess herself? When the body of a tabloid journalist shows up, the heat is turned on high for Monika.

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