Tuesday, September 11, 2007

85. Shadows & Lies

By Marjorie Eccles
Rated: Four Stars

This was a better than average mystery. I have not run across that many books that are based on The Boar War and I learned what the siege of Mafking was all about. For the part of the book that was set there made it a worthwile read alone.

Below is the blurb from the book jacket:


"It is the year 1910 and the bloodstained body of an unknown woman is found on the grounds of Sir Henry Chetwynd's Shropshire estate. A reluctant heir to the estate, Sebastian Chetwynd is already battling with divided loyalties: his ambition for a career of his own and his father's expectation that he follow in his footsteps, and his duty to marry for money when he is in love with Louisa, a student doctor and supporter of women's rights." "Unknown to the Chetwynds, there is Hannah, living in London, who has lost her memory of everything that happened in the dozen years previous to a serious accident. In an attempt to unravel her past, Hannah writes down the story of her life as far as she can remember it. As she reaches out to grasp and piece together the fragments of those missing years, it seems that the ongoing murder investigation in Shropshire could hold the key." "Switching between troubled South Africa in the last years of the nineteenth century and the murder in England ten years later, Marjorie Eccles's delicate narrative reveals the lies and deceptions that have lain beneath the veneer of polite Edwardian society."--BOOK JACKET.