| A Trick Of The Light: An Inspector McLevy Mystery - David Ashton |
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The year is 1882 and Inspector James McLevy is once more pacing the streets of Edinburgh accompanied by his near-constant companion Constable Mulholland.
But if we are to begin at the beginning we must leave behind the rain-washed city pavements for the more refined atmosphere of a Princes Street tearoom. Two women are seated at a table.
The elder of the two, small-boned and plainly dressed almost to the point of dowdy, sips her Darjeeling tea. Her pretty, coffee-drinking companion forms a contrast by wearing the latest style of gown in vivid aquamarine, chosen to bring out the colour of her green eyes and red hair.
The bird of paradise and the sparrow. Jean Brash and The Countess. Deadly rivals at the top of their chosen profession — bawdy-house keepers. The Countess has lost two of her girls to Jean Brash and she will go to any lengths to get them back. In due course the police become involved after acid is flung on to the back of one of the “deserters”.
But this is a McLevy mystery tale — the third in the series — so naturally there is more than one thread to follow. And, in A Trick Of The Light, author David Ashton teams the crafty, bowler-hatted Inspector with a recently graduated young giant by the name of Arthur Conan Doyle who professes an inordinate interest in detection and spiritualism.
And it is in the latter realm that McLevy and Doyle enter the world of the beautiful young American spiritualist, Sophie Adler. A question arises all too quickly. She was touring Britain, but why pick Edinburgh as the final venue for her séances?
And let us not forget the outwardly genteel Mrs Muriel Grierson, widow of a parsimonious undertaker and now the victim of a mean burglary. But she has a secret…
Also, what kind of creature clambers over rooftops to wrench a skylight from its fixings before slipping inside to commit the most gruesome of murders? And, going back in time, there was that business during the American Civil War when a wee street urchin saw a Confederate agent shot dead in the alleyways around Leith docks. Could all these disparate events be connected?
A tangled web indeed, a mishmash of séances, secrets and slaughter with James McLevy, the sleep-starved detective haunted by a recurring dream, striving to make sense of it all. And throughout we have the young Conan Doyle, at one time so desperate to be of help that he finds himself literally an inch away from death in a Leith tavern.
This addition to the McLevy series should come as a welcome shot in the arm to established fans of the character. Speaking as a new reader, I became engrossed in this gripping tale, recounted in gloriously archaic style – and yes, there is a butler. But he didn’t do it. |
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