The Innocents (Variety Palace Mysteries, 2)
The Innocents is the second in a mystery series set in Victorian London in the 1870s. Its main protagonists are Minnie Ward, a twenty-something manager of the Palace Theatre, and Albert Easterbrook, a former police officer turned detective.
A terrible tragedy sets the novel off at a page-turning pace as hundreds of children die in a stampede at the end of a theatrical performance. Years later, people begin getting murdered within the tight-knit theatre community. At first, there seems to be no sense to the killings, no connection. But secrets abound in the world of the theatre. All Minnie knows for sure is that the lives of people near and dear to her are suddenly being placed at risk.
A good mystery follows more than one simple path and has numerous plots twists. The Innocents has these in good measure. There is a subplot about a stolen money and dogs being trained to tear each other apart. Minnie’s theatre itself is at risk of being sold out from under her by an unscrupulous imprisoned English lord. And, of course, there are the brewing romantic relationships, the clever repartee between people whose orbits are constantly being drawn closer and pushed apart by the gravity of shared experiences, some wonderful, others painful.
Author Walsh captures the Victorian period in both language and description with colorful characters who populate the London theatre scene, filling out the novel with their own sub-stories. The author drops clues throughout. Will you pick them up? Even if you do, you will enjoy the setting and the people who inhabit it. The Palace Mystery series has all the makings of PBS programming, with readers thirsting for the third installment.
