IMAGE CREDIT: AUTHOR WEBSITE. BOOK COVER DESIGNED BY MATT AT INKSPIRAL DESIGN
In a previous post, I gave a recommendation to a duology of sci-fi novels written by Stephen Cox, Our Child of the Stars and Our Child of Two Worlds. Out of curiosity, I decided to buy the paperback of Cox's newest novel, self-published for paperback and ebook. That novel is The Crooked Medium's Guide to Murder.
The set-up is simple; taking place in 1880s London, Mrs Ashton and Mrs Bradshaw are lovers who mainly live off of Mrs Ashton's work as an evangelical spiritualist medium. Mrs Ashton has a secret ace up her sleeve; she can "read" people she touches, sensing their emotions and memories, lending her claims some validity. One day, a noble client seeks to hear from her mother-in-law, but her husband appears to stop it, and Mrs Ashton learns from reading him that he is not only a cruel and violent character, but has killed at least once in the past. Under threat from the husband's social and political connections, Mrs Ashton decides to investigate the matter.
In terms of genre, the best way I can describe this novel is 'historical low fantasy mystery". The story certainly doesn't go the way you think it might from the opening eight to ten chapters, which are basically all set-up for the meat of the story set in the English countryside. I think the best way I can describe the pacing is that the first third is over-slow for my tastes, but never so slow as to stop me reading. Then for the next two thirds, it picks up the pace aplenty with events and twists I won't spoil. The language is a part of that pacing, as while it's not entirely done in the style of Braddon, Collins and Doyle, it does have dashes and flavours of their approaches to writing.
Is this novel perfect? Well, no, but then nothing is. It does rely on some character cliches early on, though many are thankfully subverted. I think my biggest issue is with the character of Mrs Bradshaw. Compared to Mrs Ashton and the couple's hired help Maisie, Mrs Bradshaw feels underdeveloped and relies a lot more on her trope of the harsh Irish lass who will clobber unwanted male attention than the deeper characterisation given by Mrs Ashton's troubled past and Maisie's family responsibilities. There are also a couple of issues with the book's current printing: a few typos, one incomplete sentence. But those are well within the expectations of a self-published work, and throughout the book I only ran into less than half a dozen.
Even with these reservations, I would definitely recommend you check out The Crooked Medium's Guide to Murder. Not only are you supporting a good writer's first self-published effort, but you'll be treated to a neat little piece of historical fiction with an enjoyable lesbian couple in the lead, and an actually intriguing mystery.
7.9/10
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