Late
summer 1895: Daniel Wilson and his partner Abigail Fenton
have been hired by the Natural History Museum to discover
why somebody has destroyed a dinosaur skeleton. The museum
is shortly going to put on an exhibition and wants the matter
cleared up quickly, but when a visiting Bram Stoker finds
the body of a museum attendant, things take a turn for the
serious. It all seems to lead to a rather shady connection
with America’s infamous Bone Wars, or does it?
The pair delve into their most baffling (and in my opinion
most impressive) case yet in this fifth entry. This is a case
that unfolds gradually, with many red herrings and suspects.
Just when it looks as though it is wrapped up new clues emerge
that send the sleuths racing off in a different direction;
surely the mark of a really good, twisty mystery. We are now
familiar with the detectives who are a couple that have their
differences but are mercifully free of the usual “battle
of the sexes” snipping dialogues that most fictional
couples engage in. This is not a romance and everything takes
a backseat to the actual detecting, and apart from the odd
anachronism (mention of a slow cooker made me smile!) we are
firmly in the 1890s. Several historical people appear, and
the book’s most memorable scene is when the pair interview
Oscar Wilde in prison. Usually if he appears in a novel he
is depicted in his prime, but here he is shown as a broken
man near the end of his life. It is a chilling reminder of
our laws in the past and makes the reader think how, in many
ways, the past truly is a different country. This is a series
that keeps on getting better and better, and I hope it runs
for a good long time.
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