Death Brings a Shadow (A Gilded Age Mystery)
It’s spring 1889, and Prudence MacKenzie, well versed in correct behaviour in New York’s high society, has travelled south to Bradford Island off the coast of Georgia, accompanying her close friend Eleanor Dickson, who is to be married on the island. With Prudence is Geoffrey Hunter, her partner in the Hunter and Mackenzie Investigative Law firm. When Eleanor is drowned in a swamp on the island, her fiancé, Teddy Bennett, is devastated. Other members of his family, who owned the island prior to the Civil War, are not so concerned. They say she probably wandered off alone and became lost. Prudence and Geoffrey are sure she was murdered, and they start investigating.
But this murder forces them to face some of the uglier aspects of life in the Deep South prior to the Civil War, aspects that have persisted in places even long after the war. Prudence understands none of this, and it falls to Geoffrey, who is from the South, to explain customs she finds unfathomable. His acceptance, or at least his understanding, of these customs causes rifts in their close friendship.
Prudence and Geoffrey have to proceed carefully on an island whose people exist under the influences of black magic, white magic, and still-powerful former slave owners. This novel offers deeply felt experiences growing naturally from the place and the values and beliefs of its people. Every step towards the dramatic and inevitable conclusion develops from strong characters whose ideas and ideals conflict.
Coming from another country, I have not understood factors influencing the American Civil War. This novel provides a deep, and at times shocking, look into the beliefs of slave owners in the Deep South. It is a beautifully constructed, powerful novel, exciting rather than preachy, and a valuable addition to a historical collection. Highly recommended.
