Marilyn's Mystery Reads

Book Author: Heather Redmond

We return to 19th-century London in Heather Redmond’s Grave Expectations, her second mystery featuring Charles Dickens.  Dickens is in a slightly better situation now, with his journalistic sketches selling well and his love for Kate Hogarth having culminated in their engagement.

Dickens and his younger brother, Fred, have taken rooms for the summer in Chelsea to be closer to Kate.  However, the downside to this is that he now has an additional expense which, added to the frequent bailing out of his parents due to his father’s inability to stay within a budget, means that his marriage has been postponed yet again.

Nevertheless, he and Kate have been spending more time together, always properly chaperoned by either Fred or Mary, Kate’s younger sister.  As the novel opens, Kate and Charles have been enjoying an afternoon together when, in an effort to prolong their time together, Charles suggests that they pay a visit to his elderly upstairs neighbor, Miss Haverstock.

But as they climb the stairs, an unmistakable odor becomes evident.  “Maybe she is ill?” Kate asks hopefully.  But Charles responds, “It’s death, Kate.  It can be nothing else.”

It turns out that Miss Haverstock kept a lot of things about herself hidden.  She had a past life no one seemed to know about, no one except perhaps the person who murdered her.  And when Charles’ neighbor, Mr. Jones, is arrested and jailed for the murder on the flimsiest evidence, Charles and Kate decide to do whatever it takes to find the truth.

Some of the characters in Grave Expectations appeared in Ms. Redmond’s previous novel, so again we meet William and Julie, newlyweds who seem to be having some marital difficulties; Fred Dickens, anxious to leave school and start earning money; the charming Hogarth family, proper and upright; the impecunious Dickens family, always seeming to be one step away from financial ruin.

And, of course, we meet new characters:  Breese Gadfly, Charles’ Jewish neighbor; the Jones family, about to be evicted from their shabby home for nonpayment of rent after the father is jailed; and the neighborhood’s nasty landlord, Mr. Ferrazi.  And everyone has a part to play in the investigation of Miss Haverstock’s brutal murder.

As in the first mystery in this series, A Tale of Two Murders, Heather Redmond expertly brings Dickens’ London to life.  The fashions, the food, the class distinctions, the societal norms are all present, and the reader will find him/herself taken back more than 150 years.  Those touches, in addition to the clever plot and the delight in learning more about Charles Dickens, make this novel a perfect sequel to the first one.

You can read more about Heather Redmond at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.

Before Charles Dickens was a world-renowned novelist, he was a young journalist working in London.  Determined not to live the life his father led, with two terms of confinement in debtors’ prisons, Charles was working hard and determined to make his mark in society.

As A Tale of Two Murders opens, it is 1835 and Charles has been invited for dinner at the home of his employer, the Evening Chronicle‘s co-editor.  This marks the first time he meets Catherine (Kate) Hogarth, the oldest daughter in the family, and he is immediately smitten by her looks and personality.

Their dinner is interrupted by several screams that seem to come from the neighboring house, which belongs to the family of the late Lord Lugoson.  Dickens, Kate, and Mr. Hogarth walk over to investigate and come upon a strange scene–about a dozen people, including several servants, are standing aimlessly in a room while in front of the fireplace lies a young girl apparently coming out of a fainting episode.

Lady Lugoson’s guests seem unable to cope with the situation, so Charles, Kate, and Mr. Hogarth assist the hostess in getting the young woman, who is her daughter Christiana, to her bedroom.  Various physicians are called in throughout the night, but in the early hours of the next morning she dies a painful death.

When Charles go the Chronicle’s office later that morning and tells fellow reporter William Aga about the tragedy, he hears a strange story.  William tells Charles that he knows of an almost identical episode that took place on the same date, January 6th, a year earlier.  A young woman, the same age as Miss Lugoson, was also stricken and died the following day.  The symptoms that the two girls experienced sound identical to both men.

Intrigued and upset by William’s story and the suffering that he witnessed, Charles begins an investigation into the deaths of the two girls.  In addition to his curiosity, he has an added inducement to follow the story–Kate has been given permission by her father to join Dickens in his quest, and she is more than eager to break out of her routine and help.

In A Tale of Two Murders, it appears that in his early twenties Dickens had no inclination or desire to become a novelist.  Instead, he saw himself as a reporter and possible playwright.  We know that the successes of The Pickwick Papers, David Copperfield, and A Tale of Two Cities lie ahead of him, and it’s delightful to read about his life prior to that.

Heather Redmond (a pseudonym) has succeeded in bringing not only Dickens to life but the times he lived in as well.  Her descriptions of society’s manners, dining habits, clothing, and mores make A Tale of Two Murders a fascinating story.

You can read more about Heather Redmond’s new historical mystery at various internet sites.  Since Dickens wrote 15 novels, readers of A Tale of Two Murders perhaps may look forward to more novels in this series.  A Christmas Carnage or Murderous Expectations?

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.