Hemlock Bay by Martin Edwards

 

Rachel Savernake Mysteries #5

384 pages

Publisher: Head of Zeus

Release date: September 12, 2024

 

Blurb

The first rule of murder: know your victim.

Basil Palmer has decided to murder a man called Louis Carson. There's only one problem: he doesn't know anything about his intended victim, not who he is or where he lives.

Basil learns that Carson owns Hemlock Bay, a resort for the wealthy and privileged. Knowing that his plan will only work if he covers his tracks, he invents a false identity and, posing as Dr Seamus Doyle, journeys to the coast plotting murder along the way.

Meanwhile Rachel Savernake buys an intriguing painting of a place called Hemlock Bay, one that she cannot get out of her head. Macabre and strange, the image shows a shape that seems to represent a dead body lying on the beach.

Convinced that there is something sinister lurking amongst the glamour of the bay, Rachel books a cottage there – where she meets a mysterious doctor called Seamus Doyle…

 

Review

Exactly a year ago, I read Sepulchre Street, the fourth title in the Rachel Savernake series. That book opened on the intriguing dilemma of how one solves a murder before it has happened. Intrigue (and impossible murders) appear to be a theme in this series because the hook into Hemlock Bay is how do you murder somebody if you have no idea who he is?

The year is 1931 and a seaside resort called Hemlock Bay is about to live up to its somewhat sinister name. And a series of apparently unconnected events bring Rachel Savernake and her entourage to the resort.

Through diary entries, we learn that a man named Basil Palmer plans to kill Louis Carson although the two men have never met. Meanwhile, journalist Jack Flint is intrigued when he is visited by a man claiming to be a clairvoyant who claims that he has had a vision that a murder will be committed in a place called Hemlock Bay on the summer solstice. And finally, Rachel Savernake has recently bought a disturbing surrealistic painting titled Hemlock Bay which appears to feature a body draped over a rock on the beach.

It doesn’t take much to capture Rachel’s imagination and it isn’t long before she decides that she wants to know more about what’s going on in Hemlock Bay where she meets among other people the woman who painted the picture that inspired Rachel’s trip, a reclusive doctor named Seamus Doyle, as well as a man named Louis Carson. However, when murder does happen it isn’t on the summer solstice and the victim isn’t Louis Carson. The plot just thickened and is about to get a lot thicker again before Rachel figures out exactly what has been going on.

Hemlock Bay is a fascinating and captivating mystery. I was drawn in from the very first chapter and my interest didn’t flag until I had finished the full story and all the mysteries had been solved in a satisfying and fiendishly clever way. There is a lot going on in this golden age of mystery inspired story. We’ve got a locked room mystery, a fair number of red herrings, and plenty of clues there to be found for the ‘professional’ mystery reader/solver. For those of us who read too fast or too carelessly to pick up on (all) the clues, they are spelled out after the story has ended and they make it perfectly clear that Martin Edwards plays fair with his readers. Most importantly though, the recurring characters in these books are fascinating. Especially Rachel has captured my attention, just as she has captured Jack’s in the story. And like Jack, I’d love to discover more about her background and exactly how she became the woman she is. I can’t wait to read more titles in this series.

Sepulchre Street by Martin Edwards

Rachel Savernake #4

Publisher: Head of Zeus – an Aries book

448 pages

 

Blurb

How can you solve a murder before it's happened?

'This is my challenge for you,' the woman in white said. 'I want you to solve my murder.'

London, 1930s: Rachel Savernake has been invited to a private view of an art exhibition at a fashionable gallery. The artist, Damaris Gethin, known as 'the Queen of Surrealism', is debuting a show featuring live models pretending to be waxworks of famous killers. Before her welcoming speech, Damaris asks a haunting favour of the amateur sleuth: she wants Rachel to solve her murder. As Damaris takes to a stage set with a guillotine, the lights go out. There is a cry and the blade falls. Damaris has executed herself.

While Rachel questions why Damaris would take her own life - and just what she meant by 'solve my murder' - fellow party guest Jacob Flint is chasing a lead on a glamorous socialite with a sordid background. As their paths merge, this case of false identities, blackmail, and fedora-adorned doppelgängers, will descend upon a grand home on Sepulchre Street, where nothing - and no one - is quite what it seems.

 

Review

“Life without danger isn’t worth living” – Rachel Savernake

The opening of this book couldn’t be more fascinating. Damaris Gethin, surrealist artist and very much alive, asks Rachel to investigate her murder. Although she refuses to part with any more information, Rachel can’t refuse the challenge she’s been set. Things get confusing when Damaris subsequently commits suicide by guillotine, but Rachel is determined to keep her word. Damaris may have killed herself, but somebody drove her to it, and Rachel will find out who and why.

Journalist Jacob Flint would love an interview with the gorgeous Kiki de Villiers. Damaris’s death spoils his chances on that particular night, and things only get more complicated when Kiki vanishes from London, initially to parts unknown.

And thus starts a story that is at least as much thriller as it is puzzle-mystery. I suspect that the author took at least some inspiration from Christie’s Tommy and Tuppence when he created Rachel and Jacob, with Rachel being intellectually superior and Jacob being prone to finding himself in harm’s way. Having said that, while it is clear that Jacob is rather taken with Rachel, there is (at this point) no sign of a romantic relationship.

There is A LOT going on in this story. We have gangsters, murder, prostitution, people smuggling, a mysterious ‘very important person’, and blackmail for starters. And until almost the end of the story, Rachel and Jacob’s investigations appear to be unconnected. Except that of course they aren’t and the way in which it is all pulled together is masterful.

I’m very impressed that despite a large and at first glance unconnected cast of characters, I never lost track of who was who. It takes a great writer to present the various protagonists in such a way that the reader can easily follow what’s happening to whom, even if the whys aren’t disclosed until the very end.

I liked that the book ended with a ‘clue finder’. Apparently, it was commonplace during the Golden Age of Mystery to spell out the various clues contained in the story in an appendix-like chapter. Martin Edwards does the same here and for me it was a case of discovering that I had picked up on about half of them while the other half went completely over my head. I don’t mind. Part of the fun of a mystery for me is the fact that I’ve been outsmarted by the author.

Long review short: this was a fabulous read. What’s not to love about a story in which the mysteries are well plotted, the clues are there for the observant reader, and one of the main characters is as intriguing and mysterious as the cases she investigates.

Once again, I read a series book out of order. This time I can honestly say that it didn’t matter. At no point did I feel as if I was missing vital (or even trivial) information. What’s more, I can also say without a shadow of doubt that I will read the three earlier titles as well as any future Rachel Savernake stories. If only because I’m now VERY curious about Rachel’s personal story and background.