Tag: historical crime

Book Review – A Gentleman’s Murder by Christopher Huang

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About the Book

The year is 1924. The cobblestoned streets of St. James ring with jazz as Britain races forward into an age of peace and prosperity. London’s back alleys, however, are filled with broken soldiers and still enshadowed by the lingering horrors of the Great War.

Only a few years removed from the trenches of Flanders himself, Lieutenant Eric Peterkin has just been granted membership in the most prestigious soldiers-only club in London: The Britannia. But when a gentleman’s wager ends with a member stabbed to death, the victim’s last words echo in the Lieutenant’s head: that he would “soon right a great wrong from the past.”

Eric is certain that one of his fellow members is the murderer: but who? Captain Mortimer Wolfe, the soldier’s soldier thrice escaped from German custody? Second Lieutenant Oliver Saxon, the brilliant codebreaker? Or Captain Edward Aldershott, the steely club president whose Savile Row suits hide a frightening collision of mustard gas scars?

Eric’s investigation will draw him far from the marbled halls of the Britannia, to the shadowy remains of a dilapidated war hospital and the heroin dens of Limehouse. And as the facade of gentlemenhood cracks, Eric faces a Matryoshka doll of murder, vice, and secrets pointing not only to the officers of his own club but the very investigator assigned by Scotland Yard.

Format: ebook (344 pages) Publisher: Inkshares
Publication date: 31st July 2018 Genre: Historical Fiction, Crime

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My Review

A Gentleman’s Murder is the first book in the author’s historical crime series featuring amateur sleuth, Eric Peterkin. In fact, as the book starts Eric doesn’t know he’s going to be adopting the role of sleuth. It’s only once a murder occurs at the Britannia Club where he’s a member (as have generations of Peterkins been before him) that he feels obliged to conduct his own investigation. In addition, something he glimpses shortly after the murder is discovered makes him doubt how thoroughly the police will conduct the investigation.

Making Eric the son of a Chinese mother and English father not only makes him distinctive as a character but allows the author to address the racism of the time fuelled by sterotypical images of Chinese people contained in ‘Yellow Peril’ novels and plays which portrayed the Chinaman as a master-criminal involved in prostitution, gambling and opium smoking. (You can read more about this, as well other themes in the book, in Christopher Huang’s fascinating Author’s Note.)

The murder is not so much a ‘locked room’ mystery as a ‘locked vault’ mystery. As well as the means by which the murder was carried out, there are missing items which Eric suspects are vital to discovering the motivation for the murder and the identity of the murderer. It means a journey back into the past and the lives of those injured both physically and psychologically in the Great War, many of whom still bear the scars.

I really enjoyed this aspect of the book which brings home the lasting impact of the war, even on those who survived it. Eric himself is haunted by memories of what he witnessed in the trenches and increasingly feels a sense of guilt that he has not taken the trouble to find out how the soldiers under his command have fared since the war ended.

The author has constructed a cunningly plotted crime mystery with a range of possible suspects each of whom might have had a motive to carry out the murder. Very observant readers may spot a small detail at the beginning of the book which points to the culprit. I suspect most, like me, will only recognise this in retrospect after the solution has been revealed.

My one reservation was that I didn’t feel I got to know Eric very well as a person, not just as a sleuth. There were things I wanted to know, such as how he and his friend Avery met. It felt almost as if this was the second book in a series and those things had been spelled out in the earlier book. I’m hoping I get to know Eric a little better when he returns in A Pretender’s Murder.

A Gentleman’s Murder is a clever historical mystery with a great sense of period. Definitely recommended for fans of ‘Golden Age’ crime novels .

I received a digital review copy courtesy of Inkshares.

In three words: Intriguing, intricate, atmospheric
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About the Author

Christopher Huang was born in Singapore, where he lived out the first seventeen years of his life. He moved to Canada in the expectation of cooler weather, returning to Singapore the following year to serve his two years of National Service in the Singapore Army. He studied architecture at McGill University, and lived the next twenty-odd years in Montreal. He now lives in Calgary, Alberta, where he has yet to find a proper jar of real, actual Bovril. A longtime fan of the principles of fair play governing the mystery genre, he thinks of detective stories as an early form of interactive fiction. He is, of course, very fond of modern interactive fiction as well. (Bio/photo: Author website)

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Book Review – The Body in the Ice by A. J. MacKenzie #20BooksofSummer2025

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About the Book

Christmas Day, Kent, 1796. On the frozen fields of Romney Marsh stands New Hall, silent, lifeless, deserted. In its grounds lies an unexpected Christmas offering: a corpse, frozen into the ice of a horse pond.

It falls to Reverend Hardcastle, justice of the peace for St Mary in the Marsh, to investigate. But with the victim’s identity unknown, no murder weapon and no known motive, it seems an impossible task. Working alongside his trusted friend Amelia Chaytor, and new arrival Captain Edward Austen, Hardcastle soon discovers that there is more to the mystery than there first appears.

An American family torn apart by war intent on reclaiming their ancestral home, a French spy returning to the scene of his crimes, ancient loyalties and new vengeance combine to make Hardcastle and Mrs Chaytor’s attempts to discover the secret of New Hall all the more dangerous.

Format: Hardcover (368 pages) Publisher: Zaffre
Publication date: 20th April 2017 Genre: Historical Fiction, Crime, Mystery

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My Review

I’m ashamed to say The Body in the Ice has been sitting unread on my bookshelf since I received a copy via Readers First back in 2017. I included it in my list for the 20 Books of Summer 2025 reading challenge precisely so it would not be in the same state next year.

The Body in the Ice is the second book in the series featuring Reverend Hardcastle and his friend, Mrs Amelia Chaytor. Although there are references to events in the first book, The Body on the Doorstep, I didn’t feel at a disadvantage by having not read it. Having said that it would have been nice to know a little more of Hardcastle’s back story, to fill out his own description of himself. ‘I have played at being a theologian, a scholar, a playwright, a duellist, a clergyman and a rake; often all at the same time. I have lived most of my life on a whim… I have been self-indulgent, vain and foolish; even, at times, quite wicked.’

The book includes a map of the area, a floor plan of New Hall and, helpfully, a family tree of the newly returned owners of New Hall, the Rossiters. But just why have they returned now? What is it about New Hall that means someone is prepared to kill to keep it a secret? That’s the conundrum Hardcastle is tasked with solving in his capacity as justice of the peace.

I think the authors really captured the remote beauty of Romney Marsh, especially in winter. The area has been the haunt of smugglers since the 13th century and their landing places, tunnels and hiding places feature in the story, as do the efforts of the ‘preventive’ men (Customs Officers and Excise Officers, separate entities at the time) to disrupt the smuggling operations.

I loved the element of humour, chiefly provided by the person of Calpurnia, the Reverend Hardcastle’s sister. A novelist, she has come to visit in order to gain inspiration for her next book. As she explains: ‘I need a harsh and forbidding landscape… I need to feel the salt wind on my cheek, I need to hear the wild storms rage. I need to know that the people around me are enduring lives of great hardship, battling against the unfeeling elements and the cruelty of wind and wave…’ (We get to hear a chapter from it which I’m guessing the authors had great fun writing.) And Calpurnia reveals she once gave writing advice to Captain Austen’s young sister during a visit to the Austen family’s home at Godmersham. I’ll let you join the dots…

Calpurnia’s presence is not entirely welcomed by Hardcastle who has become used to living on his own, indulging in a glass of port or brandy whenever he wants. As well as plenty of unwelcome advice, Calpurnia brings with her a huge Irish wolfhound named Rodolpho who seems the most cowardly dog on God’s earth. Actually Calpurnia makes some astute observations about the investigation and proves quite formidable during some of the dramatic scenes in the book.

The Body in the Ice is a really entertaining historical mystery with a plot that involves plenty of intrigue, a family feud, some false trails as well as nods to preoccupations of the time, such as the threat of invasion by France. Hardcastle and Amelia make a great team and there’s an interesting cast of other characters. I also enjoyed the detail of life in a small village where nothing stays a secret for long and it’s probably best not to ask where the brandy and tobacco came from.

My copy contained a ‘sneak preview’ of the next book in the series, The Body in the Boat, which was published in 2018. There have been no further books in the series but the authors have written a number of other series.

The Body in the Ice is book 6 of my 20 Books of Summer 2025.

In three words: Engaging, suspenseful, atmospheric
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About the Authors

A. J. MacKenzie is the pseudonym of Marilyn Livingstone and Morgen Witzel, an Anglo-Canadian husband-and-wife team of writers and historians who live in Devon and do as much of their writing as possible on the beach or on the moors. They write non-fiction history and management books under their own names and since 2022 they have also begun writing under a second name, R. L. Graham

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