A Rather Remarkable Homecoming
The “Rather” Series, No 4
C.A. Belmond

New American Library / Penguin
September 2011/ ISBN 978-0451234612
Contemporary / Mystery / British
Amazon

Reviewed by Linda Morelli

When American heiress, Penny Nichols and her English husband, barrister Jeremy Laidley return from their honeymoon, they are greeted by two emissaries of Prince Charles, who requests their aid in solving a mystery and hopefully also save Penny’s grandmother’s home from shady property developers.

Penny and Jeremy arrive at Grandmother Beryl’s home on the Cornwall coast and are given a fragment of a document that may confirm Shakespeare visited the home in 1592. Jeremy sends the document to London for authentication, while he and Penny search for additional proof Shakespeare was at the home. They soon find a secret entrance and a diary kept by her great-aunt Penelope, her grandmother Beryl, and her great uncle Roland when they were children.

That diary starts them on a journey that takes them to the island of Madeira and the legendary castle of Tintagel. Along the way Penny and Jeremy meet a host of eccentric characters – including unsavory ones who aren't beyond kidnapping.

A Rather Remarkable Homecoming was a rather remarkable read. I enjoyed every page, because the author did a marvelous job of placing the characters in modern times, yet provided a classic, timeless quality that harked back to the novels of Agatha Christie’s Tuppence and Tommy, and Dashell Hammet’s Nick and Nora series. The main characters were true to life, the secondary characters added a wonderful dimension to an already great novel, and the settings were so real I felt I was there.

Though I haven't read the first three novels in this series, this novel stands alone as a wonderful and engrossing mystery. I fell in love with Penny and Jeremy, and the quaint secondary characters. I'm hooked, and will read the first three novels, while I anxiously await the next release in the series.