The Secrets of Wishtide

Written by Kate Saunders

Review written by Gwen Moffat

Gwen Moffat lives in Cumbria. Her novels are set in remote communities ranging from the Hebrides to the American West. The crimes fit their environment, swelling that dreadful record of sin in the smiling countryside cited by Sherlock Holmes.


The Secrets of Wishtide
Bloomsbury
RRP: £14.99
Released: July 14 2016
HBK

The year is 1850 and Laetitia Rodd, archdeacon’s widow and lady detective, is preparing a rabbit pudding with her factotum, Mrs Bentley, when a summons from her barrister brother presages her next assignment.

Lord Calderstone’s son [and heir] is passionately in love with an unsuitable woman and Mrs Rodd is required to delve into the lady’s background and dig the dirt. As if that wasn’t sordid enough, preliminary probing uncovers hypocrisy, blackmail and too many servants who don’t know their place. Like the French maid whose employer, Lady Calderstone, had an affair, was deserted by her lover in Switzerland and brought back to their country house by her husband: the self-righteous paterfamilias who keeps a mistress in London.

The Calderstone daughters seem to be unworldly innocent girls, and their brother’s only fault could be that he’s enthralled by an impoverished widow when his father demands that he marry an heiress. With the family and friends taking sides, emotions become over-heated; action speeds up, fostered by a plethora of secondary characters: curates and clerks, rakes who gamble and consort with criminals, loyal or treacherous retainers and a scattering of drabs and fallen women. (The term “whore” is used but only in dialogue). Mrs Rodd investigates unfazed and unscathed but she is a series character and this is not Victorian noir although it tries hard.

Speech is stilted 21st century and it’s odd to find mention of tectonic plates in 1850. Wobbling between twee and gory The Secrets of Wishtide is something of a romantic novel gingered up with a few murders and as such, it falls between stools.

cialis free sample coupons prostudiousa.com free prescription drug cards
seroquel 300 seroquel xr seroquel 300
tadalafil 20mg tablets tadalafil cialis tadalafil 20 mg
viagra kaufen read viagra bei frauen
prescription drugs discount cards evans.com.mx discount drug coupons
cialis discount coupons online prescription discount coupons coupon for prescriptions
vermox 100mg by-expression.com vermox 100mg
prescription discount coupons printable cialis coupon prescriptions coupons
when can you get an abortion pill 2nd trimester abortion pill abortion pill
best site for coupons sites for coupons coupon sites
medical abortion pill how much is the abortion pill abortion pill price
priligy thailand priligy keskustelu priligy 30 mg
amoxicillin dermani haqqinda amoxicillin amoxicillin 500 mg
acetazolamide acetazolamide sivuvaikutukset acetazolamide cerebral edema
cialis coupon 2015 cialis prescription coupon discount prescriptions coupons
viagra torta viagra kamagra cialis viagra helyett
abortion pill debate lupidellamajella.it how to get an abortion pill
cialis 5 mg cialis tablet cialis nedir
neurontin 400 neurontin 400 neurontin
abortion pill services aero-restauration-service.fr home abortion pill
feldene precio news.hostnetindia.com feldene flas
prescription drug cards cialis free coupon free prescription cards discount
low dose naltrexone allergies go naltrexone 50 mg tablet


Home
Book Reviews
Features
Interviews
News
Columns
Authors
Blog
About Us
Contact Us

Privacy Policy | Contact Shots Editor

THIS WEBSITE IS © SHOTS COLLECTIVE. NOT TO BE REPRODUCED ELECTRONICALLY EITHER WHOLLY OR IN PART WITHOUT PRIOR PERMISSION OF THE EDITOR.