Death Descends on Saturn Villa
The Gower Street Detective: Book 3
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
The new mystery novel in the evocative Victorian crime series starring the charming March Middleton and the most curmudgeonly private detective in London, Sidney Grice.
Gower Street, London: 1883.
March Middleton is the niece of London's greatest (and most curmudgeonly) private detective, Sidney Grice. March has just discovered a wealthy long-lost relative she never knew she had. When this newest family member meets with a horrible death, March is in the frame for murder—and only Sidney Grice can prove her innocence.
Grice agrees to investigate (for his usual fee) but warns that he is not entirely convinced of her innocence. If he were in her position, he might have been tempted. But the more he uncovers, the more all the clues point to Grice himself . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in London in 1883, Kasasian's exceptional third outing for personal (i.e., private) detective Sidney Grice (after 2015's The Curse of the House of Foskett) opens on a somber note, with a preface by Grice explaining that he had to finish the account of their current case written by his ward, March Middleton, because she has been "lost to this world." Then, in a flashback, March reads a letter dated 1882 from a woman warning her to leave Grice's home and suggesting he murdered her mother. While the reader is reeling from the implications of that reveal, a flashback to 1876 recounts the horrific fate of Marjory Gregory, who inexplicably slashed herself to death, but whose husband, who witnessed her end, insisted that she was murdered more than four years earlier. These teasers are but a prelude to a series of bizarre events that result in March apparently hacking to death a newly found relative. The Grand Guignol plot line is leavened with laugh-out-loud passages showcasing both Grice's literalness and disregard for social niceties.