Published by Verity Press
2017.
ISBN: 978-1979257015
2017.
ISBN: 978-1979257015
Lord
Charles Danvers and his wife, Antonia, are content at their home in their
country house with their adored baby, Charlie. Danvers is unwilling to accept
an invitation from his younger brother, Freddie, to visit him and stay in
Yorkshire. Freddie has indicated that he has a problem that he wants his
brother to solve and Danvers suspects this involves an indiscretion, even
though Freddie is a vicar.
Disaster strikes when a wing of Danvers’ house
burns down, and he is injured. Following this, Danvers and Antonia decide to
accept Freddie’s invitation to stay with two of his wealthy parishioners while
their house is renovated, and Danvers recovers from his injuries.
Freddie’s problem is far from the indiscretion
that Danvers was anticipating. In his role as vicar, Freddie helps with the
work of the Magdalen House in the centre of a slum area of York. The Magdalen
House is a place of refuge for poor women, many of them prostitutes, to have
their babies in a place of safety and relative comfort, where they can receive
some medical help. Many well-born women help by volunteering at the Magdalen
House, including the Danvers’ hostess, Lady Wandsley and the patroness of the
Magdalen House, the domineering Lady Billington. Freddie has called on Danvers
for help because more women are dying at the Magdalen House than is reasonable,
even in such a sick and vulnerable community, and, even worse, a well-born
volunteer is showing signs of extreme ill-health. Freddie fears that somebody
is deliberately causing these deaths and, unless the culprit is discovered, the
Magdalen House will be forced to close down.
Danvers and Antonia go to the Magdalen House to
investigate and are shocked by the world of suffering, poverty and degradation
that they had never considered from the security of their pampered and
privileged lives. Soon they are both volunteering at the Magdalen House and the
soup kitchen that feeds the poor of the neighbourhood.
Nevertheless, they find time to spend a day or
two attending a celebrated trial for murder. The trial is that of William Dove,
who is accused of poisoning his wife and whose mental health in a key point of
the trial.
As Danvers and Antonia draw nearer to the truth
about the deaths connected to the Magdalen House it becomes clear that nobody
is safe from the poisoner and it becomes a race against time to unmask the
villain before they too become victims of the killer.
A Tincture of Murder is the
fourth in the Lord Danvers Investigates series. It is a lively, easy to read
book with an interesting mix of fact and fiction and an account of the trial of
William Dove, one of the first times that the accused person’s mental health
was offered as a mitigating circumstance in an English trial for murder.
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Reviewer: Carol Westron
Donna Fletcher Crow is a former English teacher and a Life Member of the
Jane Austin Society of America, She is the author of 50 books, mostly novels
dealing with British history. The
award-winning Glastonbury, A Novel of the Holy Grail, an Arthurian grail
search epic covering 15 centuries of English history, is her best-known
work. She is also the author of The
Monastery Murders: A Very Private Grave,
A Darkly Hidden Truth and An Unholy
Communion as well as the Lord Danvers series of Victorian true-crime novels
and the literary suspense series The Elizabeth & Richard Mysteries. Donna
and her husband live in Boise, Idaho.
They have 4 adult children and 12 grandchildren. She is an enthusiastic
gardener.
To read more about all of Donna’s books and
see pictures from her garden and research trips go to: http://www.donnafletchercrow.com/
You can follow her on Facebook at: http://ning.it/OHi0MY
Carol Westron is a successful short story writer and a Creative Writing teacher. She is the moderator for the cosy/historical
crime panel, The Deadly Dames. Her crime
novels are set both in contemporary and Victorian times. The Terminal Velocity of Cats, the
first in her Scene of Crimes novels, was published July 2013. Her latest book Strangers and Angels
published 28 November 2017 is set in Victorian England. Also published in 2017 is her fourth novel in her scene of Crimes Series Karma
and the Singing Frogs.
To to read a review of Karma and the Singing Frogs,
click on the title
Thank you for the super review, Carol. You really captured the concepts of the story!
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