Chalice of Darkness (A Theatre of Thieves mystery, 1)
In early 20th-century England, the theatrical Fitzglen family are Robin-Hood-style high-society burglars, robbing the rich to… well… pay themselves. Young thespian, Mr. Jack, suggests that their new play incorporate a mysterious chalice, which they will graciously return to the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha family at the end. Missing since 1891, the Talisman Chalice is dogged by sinister superstition. Its whereabouts are a mystery, but Mr. Jack is sure he’s found it! Several old photographs showing a young woman with the chalice were amongst his father’s belongings, with a letter warning Jack’s father to stay away from Vallow Hall. Mr. Jack sets off for Vallow posthaste.
The story moves to Maude, the young woman in the photograph, and is protracted and absorbing enough that I forgot Jack was supposed to be filching the chalice. The chalice’s history is told through journal entries documenting Richard II’s theft of it from a monastery, its discovery by the York princes, their subsequent disappearance in the Tower, and Anne Boleyn’s beheading.
The book feels like a mishmash of gothic horror, a play, two murders, a mystery, a royal affair, and a dynasty-documenting journal, but no derring-do theft. I liked the idea of a slightly kooky theatrical family writing and performing their own plays, and thieving on the side to make ends meet, although the family’s involvement is mostly peripheral in this book. Maude is a tragic figure who is frail and naïve, and to describe the behavior of her husband, Saul Vallow, as anything other than melodramatic overkill would not be doing his evil antics justice. The sinister gothic houses are wonderfully creepy, and what we see of the family, appropriately eccentric. Some things stretch credulity: drag marks on the carpet made by a never-previously-moved chest, used as a hiding place (how could someone miss those?). Book One of the Master of Thieves series bodes well for a sequel.
