For the next month and a half, I'll be featuring other mystery writers here on Thursdays, and I'll be appearing on their blogs. This week's guest is Donna Fletcher Crow. Please welcome her and her book, A Lethal Spectre.
A
Lethal Spectre, Lord Danvers Investigates, Book 5, a Victorian
True-crime mystery
The
elegance of a London season and the atrocities of an Indian mutiny
woven into an intricate tapestry
Antonia and Charles are swept up in the glittering swirl of a London
season as they present Aunt Aelfrida’s ward to society. In India
Antonia’s closest girlhood friend is caught in the most brutal
massacre ‘in the book of time’. What could these disparate events
have to do with murders in London and Brighton? This engrossing story
comes to life with all the vivid historical detail readers expect
from Donna Fletcher Crow.
“A stunning contrast between the dramas and machinations of
fashionable London life
and the unfurling of an unthinkable tragedy.
A story of lights and shadows, all impeccably well researched and
realised.”
~Linda Stratmann, author of The Frances Doughty Mysteries
Excerpt:
Chapter 1
It
was only midmorning and already the heat was stifling. Hot wind
seared and scorching sun radiated from the walls of the barracks
behind them. The acrid smell of the buildings of the cantonment
beyond, now reduced to black smoldering rubble—all their homes and
possessions—stung every nose. Emilia Landry stood among the women
and children who had been called from their homes in the civilian
cantonment and gathered into the military entrenchment on the orders
of General Wheeler.
They had been
here a week now, hoping for the best; but fearing the worst. No
attack had come on the entrenchment, but mutinous sepoys and vandals
had ransacked the city, burned the officers’ bungalows in the new
cantonment, and, disastrously, seized the magazine where the army
treasury, ammunitions and heavy guns were stored.
Emilia closed her
eyes against the sight of the black smoke, and saw in her mind the
pleasant bungalow she had occupied with her friend Louisa Chalwin and
Louisa’s veterinarian husband Edwin. Louisa had planted a lovely
garden, complete with English roses that bloomed undaunted in the
Indian summer. A magnificent old banyan tree shaded a summer house
where Emilia loved to sit and read in the mornings and take tea in
the afternoons. All a blackened rubble now.
They had been
hearing dire reports for weeks. Revolt of the native troops at
Meerut. Then at Delhi. And riots at Lucknow, only some sixty miles to
the northeast. But no apprehension had been felt of treachery on the
part of their own troops at Cawnpore.
This morning,
however, Sunday morning, the seventh of June, Sir Hugh Wheeler,
commanding general at Cawnpore, had received a letter from the Nana
Sahib, declaring his intention of attacking.
Now everyone on
the verandah of the barracks held their breath, as all in the
entrenchment seemed to do. The tension of the soldiers, posted with
leveled rifles around the circumference of the barricading mud wall,
communicated itself to every person.
The mewling of a
baby born only a few hours before vibrated on the air. The cry was
cut off by the boom of a cannon. Women shrieked; children wailed as
the ball struck the barrack behind them.
A bugle call
split the air, sounding above the mayhem. The crack of shot was
deafening as hundreds of rifles responded. The mutiny had come to
Cawnpore.
A
moan tore from deep in her throat and Lady Antonia Danvers sat up
sharply. She was drenched in sweat, even though the early June night
was cold in London. Tonia reached for the carafe of water by her bed
and filled a glass to relieve her parched throat. What had she
dreamed? How could such vivid horror have come from her own
imagination?
She crossed the room
and, pushing the heavy drapery aside, raised the sash on her window,
letting a fresh breeze bathe her face. She breathed deeply of the
blessed, moist air. Still unsettled from the terrors of her dream,
Antonia returned to bed. The sky had lightened to silver, however,
and the first notes of the dawn chorus rang in the garden before
Tonia returned to an uneasy sleep.
She wakened far too
late to share her morning tea with her husband as was their custom.
When she inquired of her maid she was informed that her lord would be
out for the day, involved with his man of business and taking dinner
at his club. She would have no opportunity to discuss the nightmare
with Charles, although the phantom spectre continued to follow her.
Available on Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07C2MD17S/linkCode=as2&tag=themonamurd-20
Donna Fletcher Crow
is a lifelong Anglophile with a special love for the Victorians,
especially their energy, confidence and creativity. She is a former
English teacher and the author of 50 books, mostly novels of British
history, including the award-winning Arthurian epic, Glastonbury,
The Novel of Christian England. She currently authors three mystery
series: The Monastery Murders; Elizabeth and Richard Literary
Suspense; and Lord Danvers Investigates, Victorian true-crime.
Website:
https://www.donnafletchercrow.com/
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/DonnaFletcherCr
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