Death in Paradise Ramp
“Ramps” in Gibraltar are steep streets that today are furnished with stone steps, but in 1802 they are still rough and unsurfaced. Workmen clearing away a dilapidated house on Paradise Ramp discover a skeleton in the cellar.
Amateur detective Giovanni Bresciano, who has already starred in five previous Gibraltar-based mysteries, soon finds out whose body it is, and that it was a murder victim. The Town Major, a military officer who is the nearest thing Gibraltar has to a chief of police, has his hands full trying to forestall a possible mutiny by soldiers angry about the closure of most of the town’s drinking dens by the disciplinarian new Governor, the Duke of Kent (the future father of Queen Victoria).
As if murder and mutiny were not trouble enough, Bresciano is dropped in on by two hitherto unheard-of Genoese cousins, who are laying over in Gibraltar on their way to America. The elder, Umberto, thrusts himself into “helping” Bresciano investigate the murder. A certain Captain and Mrs Wickham also appear, which may please or offend fans of Jane Austen (which I’m not).
Tensions are bubbling in several of the families involved, including Bresciano’s own, but a kind of rough justice is arrived at in the end, too rough for Bresciano’s comfort.
I thought the plotting a little less neat than in the other Bresciano novels, but this is a fast and gripping read, which I recommend.
