DEATH IN THE VALLEY OF SHADOWS

Deryn Lake

Allison & Busby, £17.99 hbk

Reviewed by Maureen Carlyle

A trembling middle-aged man, obviously in fear of his life, enters John Rawlings’ shop in Shug Lane, and begs John to hide him in the back. So begins the latest adventure of the urbane eighteenth century apothecary and part-time sleuth, in the highly entertaining series by Deryn Lake.

The excitement never lets up from that moment on. The fugitive, Aidan Fenchurch, a wealthy wine importer, is fleeing from a former lover, the truly terrifying Ariadne Bussell, who is making his life a misery by refusing to accept that their affair ended a long time ago. John puts Mrs. Bussell off the scent, and he and Fenchurch, who wishes to deposit some papers with John for safekeeping, part company with an arrangement to meet at John’s house the next day.

It is not until after Fenchurch fails to keep the appointment that John learns that the poor man has been bludgeoned to death on the doorstep of his own house. John realises he has to take the story of the avenging Bussell seriously and that the Blind Beak, Sir John Fielding, will have to be notified of the circumstances.

Suspicion instantly falls on Mrs. Bussell – did she initiate a contract killing? John soon becomes acquainted with the Fenchurch family – three daughters and a cousin, a poor relation who lives with them, and learns that Mrs. Bussell has a husband and two grown sons. Aidan Fenchurch’s funeral is a grand affair at his country mansion in Surrey. Mr. and Mrs. Bussell attend, not knowing that the Blind Beak’s Brave Fellows have been detailed to arrest her at the end of the proceedings. On the way to Bow Street she is taken violently ill, and has to be returned to her home, where she dies a most unpleasant death. John is in no doubt that there is a poisoner on the loose. As the pace intensifies and the body count increases, the feuding Fenchurches and Bussells come to resemble the Montagues and Capulets.

The action moves rapidly between London and Surrey, and John has to balance his enthusiasm for the case against the needs of his family – his wife Emilia is about to give birth.

All the old favourites appear – the redoubtable Joe Jago, whose moral strength is put to the ultimate test, Nicholas "the Muscovite", the Comte and Comtesse de Vignolles, and Samuel Swann, for whom love is in the air. The excitement never slackens, and reaches its climax in a scene reminiscent of the last act of Lucia di Lammermoor, when the poisoner is finally unmasked.

There are dark hints that a shadow hangs over the Rawlings family. Every book in the series seems to me to be that little bit more exciting than the last, and it is certainly the case with this one. May they run and run!