Arrowood and The Meeting House Murders (An Arrowood Mystery)
The fourth instalment of Mick Finlay’s Arrowood series deals with some very sensitive topics, as Barnett and his guv’nor are tasked with protecting a group of Africans of the amaQwabe tribe. The men and women have been contracted as performing Zulus by Capaldi, a nefarious showman, and are desperate to escape his clutches. Seeking refuge in the Quaker meeting house, the detectives think their charges are safe but, when one of the Africans and a member of the Quaker community are murdered and the other Africans are taken, Arrowood and Barnett realise that there is more to this mystery than first appears.
This book is filled with characters from London’s underworld of freak shows, docklands, greasy pubs and casual violence, alcohol, and desperation. Alongside this narrative is that of Arrowood’s floundering marriage and the plague of illness that ripped through Victorian London’s poor, particularly the children. Each book in the series features an individual mystery and so can be enjoyed as a stand-alone, but reading them as a series will give the reader an insight into the world and the characters of the series, especially the development of Barnett and Arrowood and their relationship.
A wonderful insight into the prejudices and cruelty of the Victorian era and essential reading for fans of historical crime authors such as Laura Shepherd-Robinson, Ambrose Parry and Antonia Hodgson.
