The Puzzle of Blackstone Lodge (Rachel Savernake Golden Age Mysteries, 3)
Nell Fagan’s body is found crushed by a rock fall near Blackstone Fell. Is it an accident or a murder masquerading as an accident? Undoubtedly a case for Rachel Savernake—a reclusive, brilliant, eccentric, ultra-wealthy sleuth with a reputation for solving enigmatic puzzles. She and her three trusted companions rent a cottage in the village, on the pretext of studying local folklore, and they are all set to play their parts.
Nell, a disgraced investigative journalist, was looking into two unexplained disappearances from Blackstone Lodge—one in 1606 and one in 1914. She was also seeking information for a man, recently murdered, whose mother died a suspicious death in the sanatorium, owned by the wealthy Sambrook family. Why is Denzil Sambrook gradually buying up the village? How did the odious old Reverend Doyle attract the beautiful young Judith into marriage? Why did young Dr. Carrodus, whose diagnosis for every ailment known to man is ‘bed rest’, buy a practice in the middle of nowhere? And how does the disappearance of two men three hundred years apart and a famous medium fit into it all?
In the third Rachel Savernake Golden Age Mystery, it’s easy to soak up the atmospheric character of Blackstone Fell—an eerie village of shadows and secrets, surrounded by misty moors, marshland and bogs, underwater caverns, caves and unstable rock overhangs. Amongst a number of believably idiosyncratic characters, barmaid Dilys is a chatty charmer who fills in backstory as deftly as she draws pints.
This is a page-turning dark drama full of murder, secrecy, adultery and a compelling locked-room mystery. The novel has Sherlockian reminiscences in its lead character, and her enigmatic backstory is definitely worth investigating. The author’s note includes a ‘cluefinder’, a device used during the between-wars Golden Age of murder.
