Hushed in Death

September 1, 2018
The third sedate appearance of the Hampshire Constabulary's DCI Thomas Lamb continues Kelly's project to show that beneath the veneer of village courtesies, British life in 1942 was a good deal more fraught than you might suspect.And that's even before the Luftwaffe bombers return, as they briefly do late in the game, to absolutely no effect. Long before then, Kelly has already marked out the real conflict down below as pitching some denizens of The Elton House Sanitorium for invalided ex-servicemen against the staff, the citizens of nearby Marbury, and each other. The low-intensity flashpoint is the discovery of Elton House gardener/handyman Joseph Lee's body floating in the pond. Sanitorium volunteer Janet Lockhart, who found Lee's body, and Lt. James Travers, the convalescent she first alerted, agree that no one much liked Lee. But only one person quarreled with him and knocked him down on the night he died: wealthy, rakish painter Alan Fox, who says he was defending himself from Lee even though it seems more likely that he was defending the reputation of Theresa Hitchens, the local publican's daughter, whose reputation, it turns out, could use defenders. Aided by a crew that includes DS David Wallace, who was seriously wounded in Lamb's last case (The Wages of Desire, 2016), and his driver and daughter, Vera Lamb, whose not-so-secret relationship with Wallace makes her especially sympathetic to the pressures on Theresa Hitchens, Lamb uncovers unsavory links to not one but two earlier murders involving Lord Henry Elton, whose estate the sanitorium now occupies, and Lady Catherine Elton, the wife once tried for killing him.A slow-burning blast from the past that reminds you that the sins of the fathers were already an inheritance from their own parents. Next time, let's hope Kelly's hero doesn't feel the need to keep reminding everyone, "I was on the Somme...for an entire bloody year."

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September 10, 2018
Kelly’s solid, if unspectacular, third whodunit set in England during WWII (after 2016’s The Wages of Desire) opens with the body of Joseph Lee, the gardener at Elton House, a mansion turned into a treatment facility for traumatized war veterans, floating in a pond. Det. Chief Insp. Thomas Lamb, aided by his grown daughter, Vera, who serves as his driver, goes through the usual routine of having the Elton House staff interviewed, including Frederick Hornby, the facility director, and Janet Lockhart, a volunteer who found the body and who believes that she can help people reconnect with deceased loved ones. The inquiry takes a new path after Lamb learns that the pond was the setting for a murder committed during WWI. Lord Henry Elton was poisoned by his wife, Catherine, who placed him in the water to make the death appear to be an accidental drowning. Kelly plays fair with the reader, and despite a bit of silliness at the end, this will appeal to fans of Rennie Airth and Charles Todd. Agent: Joelle Delbourgo, Joelle Delbourgo Assoc.

October 15, 2018
Solving the murder of Joseph Lee in the rural community of Marbury, England, isn't going to be straightforward, as DCI Thomas Lamb learns. Lee, gardener at Elton House Sanatorium, Britain's only treatment center for shell-shocked soldiers in 1942, had been tolerated if not actively disliked by hospital staff and townspeople alike, none of whom regrets Lee's death after his body is found in the pond on the sanatorium grounds. Lee had had a recent altercation with local artist Alan Fox, and soon after Lee's body is found, Fox is also dead, a presumed suicide. And then there's the history of Elton House, whose master, Sir Henry Elton, also was murdered and found in the pond decades earlier. Lamb sets aside his concern about his daughter, Constable Vera Lamb, who's troubled about her relationship with DS David Wallace, as he delves into Elton House and its residents, current and past. The narrative starts a bit slowly but hurtles to a riveting climax. This third in the Inspector Lamb series continues the effective blending of country-mystery tropes set against a WWII background.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)