‘The Montford Maniac’ by M.R.C. Kasasian

Published by Canelo,
18 April 2024.
ISBN: 978-1-80436610-3 (PB)

The Montford Maniac is the second novel in this author’s series featuring Lady Violet Thorn, a writer of penny dreadfuls (the very short snippets from her work that we read certainly live up to this description). The novel, set in Victorian Suffolk, begins with two important events. The first is a letter from Jack, Lady Violet’s former lover who jilted her at the altar and who she thinks may be in trouble. The second is that Lady Violet’s appalling Aunt Igitha has descended uninvited to stay, distracting Lady Violet from her writing and creating general unpleasantness. Eventually Lady Violet finds the courage to tell her aunt to leave. Igitha departs leaving a trail of threats.

Before long a woman is impaled by a spike, another is hanged outside Lady Violet’s window and a wild animal, delivered in a crate to Lady Violet’s house, kills a drunken passer-by. These sadistic events remind Lady Violet of the methods of the serial killer known as the Montford Maniac, whose crimes ten years previously remain unsolved. She begins to consider various possibilities including whether the maniac is back in business or whether her aunt is taking her retribution. Lady Violet becomes even more intimately involved when she receives anonymous letters threatening her safety. The plot is thickened by her love life, and there are flashbacks to her childhood. Despite the generally light mood of the narrative, there are some gruesome events and descriptions, none more so than when an innocent woman is burned to death in the local church.

Lady Violet is assisted in her investigations by a number of memorable characters. Inspector Alfred Stanbury of the local police is relatively normal, but there are Lady Violet’s two idiosyncratic retainers, the faithful manservant Gerrund, and the splendidly impertinent maid Agnust (asked whether the latter is always so ‘forthright’, Lady Violet says ‘I inherited her ... and, for all her eccentricities, she has many sterling qualities’). I enjoyed the hansom driver Faithless and his horse Old Queeny. Others add much to the story including Uncle Tiberius who suffers from narcolepsy and from being married to Aunt Igitha. Various stolid Suffolk characters are given to quaint expressions, stating the obvious, taking things literally, gnomic utterances or a combination of these.

The investigation is enlivened by characters from Lady Violet’s own stories giving her advice and commenting on her actions. ‘I preferred to spend more of my time with my fictional characters,’ she writes, ‘especially Ruby Gibson, my lady adventuress, and Inspector Havelock Hefty of Scotland Yard. They featured in most of my novels and short stories and rather too many of my thoughts, but they could never play me false – at least not without my permission.’ Lady Violet also enjoys her absinthe: ‘I have never found an answer in alcohol, but that has yet to stop me looking for one’ she muses whilst going through the elaborate preparation of the drink with silver slotted spoon, sugar lump and water fountain.

This is a very entertaining and well-plotted novel with an enjoyable combination of interesting characters, comic turns and sometimes blithe savagery leading via a serious investigation to a satisfying conclusion. It is highly recommended.
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Reviewer: David Whittle

M. R. C. Kasasian  was raised in Lancashire, and has had careers as varied as factory hand, wine waiter, veterinary assistant, fairground worker and  dentist. He lives with his wife in Suffolk in the winter and in a fishing village in the south of Malta during the summer. He is now a full time author.

David Whittle is firstly a musician (he is an organist and was Director of Music at Leicester Grammar School for over 30 years) but has always enjoyed crime fiction. This led him to write a biography of the composer Bruce Montgomery who is better known to lovers of crime fiction as Edmund Crispin, about whom he gives talks now and then. He is currently convenor of the East Midlands Chapter of the Crime Writers’ Association.