Here is a quick spoil filled recap. A high end tour company that caters to the very rich is currently in Stratford-on-Avon enjoying the life and times of one William Shakespeare. The mystery starts with the disappearance of the adopted son of a wealthy man and the murder of a loner woman who is also part of the tour. The murders scenes all have a stanza of a poem that is used to help solve the case. Jury a detective with Scotland Yard is called upon to solve the case. As the investigation starts, we meet the members of this exclusive tour. The head of the company is Mr. Honeycutt and his main concern is quickly solving the case so no bad publicity gets out. Lady Violet Dew and her uptight niece Cyclamen provide suspects and entertainment to the detective and his friend Plant. Mr. Cholmondleley is the rare Brit who is touring his
home country. Ms. Bracegridle the unfortunate first victim who was slashed from ear to ear in a public restroom. Our main characters form the tour however are Harvey Schoenberg, who excitedly expounds on his theories of the real reasons behind Christopher Marlowe's untimely death in the time of Shakespeare. He carries around a prototype laptop on which he keeps all his research and yammers away to anybody who he can get to listen. The Farraday family, which consists of James, the head of the family, his adopted son (who is missing at the start of the book) James, his adopted daughter Penny, his new wife Amelia Blue, and her daughter Honey Belle (I love the names in this book!) turn out to be the main characters of interest in the book. Soon after Ms. Bracegridle is found dead, and James still appears to be missing all of the tour participants are questioned, this leads to a few red herrings but that is about it. Jury does find out the James and Penny are actually the children of a former worker of Mr. Farraday's who had left the children with him when she became to ill to care for them, she subsequently died when Penny was young and James just a baby. Honey Belle is the next murder victim and the investigation turns to someone who is targeting the tour. Another round of questioning and more Marlowe death talk from our obnoxious friend Harvey lead nowhere. Amelia Blue is murdered and the boy is still missing and the investigation turns to a possible motive of female killing. Meanwhile Harvey's cold and successful brother Jonathan comes to visit him in London. Harvey's body is soon discovered mutilated like all the other victims, blowing the all female MO out of the water. After some back and forth Jury finally uses Harvey's research into the death of Marlowe to solve the case. SPOILER ALERT!!!!!! The killer is Harvey! He murdered his brother and made the body look like his own, and he then assumed the identity of his dead brother. The murders all had to do with James and Penny's mother, whom Harvey had been in love with, but had been seduced away by his brother. Later Harvey felt that Mr. Farraday had left her to die, and kept the children (James is possibly Harvey's natural son). His murder of Amelia Blue and Honey Belle was to try and inflict the same pain on him. Ms. Bracegridle's murder was simply to shut her up after she discovered one to many of Harvey's secrets. James if found safe and sound, kidnapped by Harvey to try and make him his own son. All is well that ends well and the non-murdered people attempt to live out the rest of their lives.
This book was...odd. It felt like it skipped around a bit and I had trouble following everything that led to the conclusion of the case. A few things in the book were obviously allusions to pieces of Jury's life from previous books and as this was the first book I read in this series. The bit's about Marlowe and Shakespeare seemed to be used as if the reader already knew certain facts about them, which as much as I love that era, I did not. The drawing of the line between Harvey's research and the conclusion of the case was a little abrupt, but again that may be because I could not get a handle on it. The characters themselves were brilliant, and I felt a bit like I was reading a script from a BBC mystery show. I laughed out loud several times and the idea of pre-internet yet semi-contemporary settings was pretty great. The Dirty Duck that the book is named for is a bar that many of the theatre patrons go to before and after the shows. Overall it was an interesting read, I know that the author is still writing and is insanely popular, especially in Britain. I would not say no if a few more of her books came my way.
Do you ever pick up random books? Do your family members delight in finding the most obscure books possible for you? How hard is it to pick up a book in the middle of a series.
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