Book Review: Sick of Shadows

Reviewed By: Catherine Thompson - RAM

Sick of Shadows     Amazon US HC Amazon Canada HC
Marion Chesney
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Historical
Series: Edwardian Murder Mysteries (chesney)
St. Martin’s Minotaur; $32.95 hardcover; 215 pages

Lady Rose Summer has entered into an engagement of convenience with Captain Harry Cathcart, Boer War hero and private investigative agent, to save herself from being shipped off to India with all the other failed debutantes. Her parents, the Earl and Countess of Hadfield, aren’t exactly thrilled, but they hope that the engagement will keep their only child out of trouble.

Unfortunately, trouble has a way of finding Lady Rose. She befriends a country rector’s daughter, Dolly Tremaine. Dolly has been sent to town for the Season in hopes of snagging a rich husband, but the girl pines for the countryside and the quiet life she’s left behind. At a ball hosted by the Barrington-Bruces, Dolly passes Rose a note, telling her that she’s running away and wishes to see Rose once more before she leaves London. But when Rose arrives at the meeting-place, the bridge over the Serpentine, she discovers Dolly’s corpse, laid out in a rowboat like Tennyson’s Lady of Shalott on the water below. Rose determines to find Dolly’s murderer, with or without Harry’s help.

Sick of Shadows is the third Lady Rose Summer mystery, and it’s just as enjoyable as the others. It’s a light, frothy thing like the tea-gowns Rose prefers to wear. There’s nothing here to challenge the brain, but sometimes that’s precisely what one needs. Like most of Chesney’s work (as M C Beaton she writes the Hamish Macbeth and Agatha Raisin series), it’s witty and sharp. It’s a little heavy-handed with the research: I really don’t think readers need to know that George Pullman, inventor of the Pullman train carriage, was buried in a block of concrete. But all in all, it’s a nice, fun little read.

Catherine Thompson - RAM

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Catherine Thompson - RAM