Editorial Content for Death and the Visitors: A Mary Shelley Mystery
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
Historical fiction is one of my favorite genres because you get to spend time with characters you admire but never had the chance to experience personally. When done well, an author can bring these famous people to life on the page and allow them to live on through whatever imaginative setting has been created for them.
Heather Redmond is well known for her outstanding Charles Dickens-inspired series, A Dickens of a Crime. Now she brings us DEATH AND THE VISITORS, her second mystery featuring Mary Shelley and her stepsister, Jane “Claire” Clairmont. The year is 1814, and the teenage girls are living and working with their parents and siblings in a home that rests above Mary’s father’s bookshop. William Godwin was a well-known philosopher and was married first to Mary’s mother, author and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. Unfortunately, the bookshop has seen better days, and the Godwin family is struggling.
"DEATH AND THE VISITORS reads like a wonderful Dickensian tale and is consistently intriguing from start to finish."
Things may be looking up with the influx of foreign diplomats who have been descending upon London recently. A wealthy clan of Russian aristocrats are coming by to pay a visit to the Godwins and plan to make a healthy donation to both the bookshop and the publishing venture, the Juvenile Library, that they have been trying to promote. This gift is allegedly going to come in the form of a bag full of precious diamonds. That should solve all their problems and get nasty creditors like John Cannon off their backs.
However, all their hopes turn to tragedy when Dmitry Naryshkin, who had promised the diamonds, disappears one night and his body turns up not long after, obviously the victim of foul play. Another Russian, a supposed hitman named Alexander Federov, is arrested for the murder. Either way, the Godwin family is out the riches they were anticipating, and Cannon is threatening to get all he is owed or else the family will be out on the streets.
It is at this point that Mary and Jane, who already have proven themselves to be amateur sleuths due to their fertile imaginations, start looking into what soon becomes a small series of murders that they believe must be connected. They will need the aid of a family friend and Mary’s would-be suitor, poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Other prominent characters like Lord Byron appear in the story as well, which made me think of the now infamous evening at Byron’s castle when Mary, Jane, Percy, Byron and Dr. Polidori all competed to create literary works, and FRANKENSTEIN was one of the results. If you have ever seen the gloriously delirious Ken Russell film Gothic, you will get a nice interpretation of how that evening may have gone.
Mary and Jane have much more than just creditors and Russian assassins to avoid in their investigation. The influx of foreigners has brought about many abductions, specifically of young women, and Mary is almost a victim at one point. When a conspiracy is eventually uncovered, the danger really intensifies for our young protagonists. Merely saving their family home and bookshop may be the least of their worries.
DEATH AND THE VISITORS reads like a wonderful Dickensian tale and is consistently intriguing from start to finish.
Teaser
1814, London: Foreign diplomats are descending on London in advance of the Congress of Vienna meetings to formulate a new peace plan for Europe following Napoleon’s downfall. Mary and Jane’s father, political philosopher William Godwin, is hosting a gathering with an advance party of Russian royal staff. Following their visit, Jane overhears her father reassuring his pushiest creditor that the Russians have pledged diamonds to support his publishing venture, the Juvenile Library, relieving his financial burden. But when Godwin is told the man who promised the diamonds was pulled from the River Thames, his dire financial problems are further complicated by the suspicion that the family may have been involved in the murder. Stepsisters Mary and Jane resolve to find the real killer to clear the family name.
Promo
1814, London: Foreign diplomats are descending on London in advance of the Congress of Vienna meetings to formulate a new peace plan for Europe following Napoleon’s downfall. Mary and Jane’s father, political philosopher William Godwin, is hosting a gathering with an advance party of Russian royal staff. Following their visit, Jane overhears her father reassuring his pushiest creditor that the Russians have pledged diamonds to support his publishing venture, the Juvenile Library, relieving his financial burden. But when Godwin is told the man who promised the diamonds was pulled from the River Thames, his dire financial problems are further complicated by the suspicion that the family may have been involved in the murder. Stepsisters Mary and Jane resolve to find the real killer to clear the family name.
About the Book
The ties between a young Mary Shelley, her stepsister Jane “Claire” Clairmont, poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and the already-infamous Lord Byron grow increasingly tangled as they're drawn into a dangerous investigation in this vivid historical mystery exploring the birth of teenaged Mary’s creative genius and the roots of a real-life trio who would later scandalize 19th century England even as they transformed the literary world.
1814, London: Foreign diplomats are descending on London in advance of the Congress of Vienna meetings to formulate a new peace plan for Europe following Napoleon’s downfall. Mary and Jane’s father, political philosopher William Godwin, is hosting a gathering with an advance party of Russian royal staff. The Russians are enthusiastic followers of Mary’s late mother, philosopher and women’s rights advocate Mary Wollstonecraft, which leads to a lively dinner discussion.
Following their visit, Jane overhears her father reassuring his pushiest creditor that the Russians have pledged diamonds to support his publishing venture, the Juvenile Library, relieving his financial burden. But when Godwin is told the man who promised the diamonds was pulled from the River Thames, his dire financial problems are further complicated by the suspicion that the family may have been involved in the murder.
Stepsisters Mary and Jane resolve to find the real killer to clear the family name. Coming to their aid is Godwin’s disciple, the dashing poet Percy Shelley, who seems increasingly devoted to Mary, despite the fact that he is married. And a young woman Jane befriends turns out to be the mistress of the celebrated poet --- and infamous lover --- Lord Byron.
As both sisters find themselves perhaps dangerously captivated by the poets, their proximity to the truth of the Russian’s murder puts them in far greater peril.
Audiobook available, read by Siobhan Waring
