Devon
1604: Dr Gabriel Taverner receives an urgent summons from
his old ship, which has just docked in Plymouth. He finds
his former captain and his crew in some state, nervous and
seeming afraid of their own shadows. They report seeing blue
ghosts and, when a body is discovered tucked away, it looks
as though the ship has been playing host to stowaways. But
this is no ordinary body, and Gabe is about to embark on no
ordinary mystery…
I’m
not normally a big fan of woo-woo mysteries as too often the
supernatural element gets used lazily to beef up an otherwise
poor plot. But some authors can do this type of thing well,
and Ms Clare is one of them She conjures up a genuinely eerie
atmosphere and backs it up with a lively plot and interesting
characters. Gabe and his sister are likeable characters, albeit
with the inevitable more modern views than the protagonists
of historical novels invariably possess.
This
is one of those novels with a surprise at every turn, so saying
too much will spoil the story. But when I say that the ship
had visited Hispaniola, this might drop a clue. Gabe liaises
with his usual colleagues and unearths secret after secret,
while more bodies pile up and more than one group of people
need to be run to earth. I enjoyed the first two books but
this one is even better, as we have been introduced to all
the series characters and can now watch them detecting. There
is a lot of story in here plus a background of real historical
events. Highly recommended.
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