In the Shadow of Vesuvius

October 28, 2019
In 1902, Lady Emily Hargreaves and her husband, Colin, rent a villa near Pompeii in bestseller Alexander’s uneven 14th series mystery (after 2018’s Uneasy Lies the Crown). Exploring the ancient ruins, Colin and Emily discover a recently strangled corpse amid those felled by the Vesuvius’s 79 CE eruption. Archaeologist Callie Carter appears to have known the victim, American journalist Clarence Walker, better than she admits; Callie’s brother, Benjamin, is inexplicably antagonistic; and Walker’s past in Montana may offer clues as well. Meanwhile, Emily is shaken when a daughter Colin didn’t know he had, Kat von Lange, shows up and moves in with the couple. Kat’s over-the-top manipulations and Colin’s immediate surrender to them feel implausible, and the murder investigation is too diffuse to be suspenseful, but the author does a fine job evoking the setting’s rich history, particularly in the chapters written as the journal entries of Pompeian poet Quinta Flavia Kassandra. Though this is far from Alexander’s strongest historical, lovers of classical culture should be pleased. Agent: Anne Hawkins, John Hawkins & Assoc.

November 1, 2019
An invitation from a friend introduces an Edwardian couple to yet another odd murder. Lady Emily Hargreaves and her husband, Colin, agent of the British Crown, are no strangers to unusual murders (Uneasy Lies the Crown, 2018, etc.), but they expect no more than a pleasant vacation when their friend Ivy Brandon invites them to visit Pompeii. They rent a villa and get a scholarly tour of the ruins from Ivy's new friends. Callie Carter is an archaeologist who got her job only because her artist brother, Benjamin, is on hand to chaperone her. While exploring the ruins, they discover that one of the many bodies apparently preserved when Vesuvius erupted is disconcertingly modern. As Emily and Colin investigate the contemporary murder, alternating chapters explore the ancient story of Quinta Flavia Kassandra, a Greek slave and talented poet whose father, a tutor for a wealthy family, buys their freedom in the year 79. Kassandra has fallen under the spell of Titus Livius Silvanus, but he marries Lepida, her former mistress. Although Kassandra thinks he'll seek to bed her, his actual desire is to have her secretly write poetry he can claim as his own. Back in 1902, the newly dead man is identified as journalist Clarence Walker, who seemed more dutiful than enthusiastic about the story he was writing. The Hargreaves' lives are turned upside down by the arrival of a young woman named Katharina von Lange, who announces herself as Colin's daughter. Her mother, Kristiana, who died when Katharina was a child, was a fellow agent Colin was in love with before meeting Emily; she'd refused to marry him and never told him about the pregnancy. Kat is a manipulative loose cannon who resents and ignores Emily while trying her own hand at sleuthing and seeking her father's approval. Questioning the crew at the archaeological site reveals a trove of hidden secrets. Which of them will provide a motive for murder? A captivating story of Pompeii in which the city's mysterious past proves more engaging than the modern mystery.

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November 1, 2019
In this series' fourteenth outing (after Uneasy Lies the Crown, 2019), turn-of-the-century sleuth Lady Emily Hargreaves' exploration of Pompeii's ruins reveals a clever killer. While examining plaster casts of supposedly ancient human remains, Emily spots incongruously modern sideburns and discovers the body of an American reporter hidden inside the archaeologists' protective covering. Despite the killer's obviously specialized skills, local police fear the involvement of organized crime and are reluctant to investigate. Lady Emily and her master-spy husband, Colin, have no intention of leaving the murder unsolved. But, as they begin interviewing the site's archaeologists, life throws a curveball: a young woman appears at their villa, announcing herself as Kat, Colin's unknown daughter. Emily navigates Kat's manipulations as well as exploring drama arising from her friend Jeremy's romance with an alluring female archaeologist, all while unraveling the thoroughly involving archaeological mystery. In tandem with Emily's 1907 narrative, the ancient story of Kassandra, a legendary poet, complements themes of self-determination and gender equality raised by Emily's skilled, but often underestimated, detection.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

August 1, 2019

In the ruins of Pompeii, Lady Emily Hargreaves discovers a corpse whose sad state the police dismissively attribute to the work of local gangs. Emily immediately dismisses their lack of concern and, with the help of some archaeologists at the local dig, starts investigating. Next in the "Lady Emily Mystery" series.

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