Death at Dartmoor, written by coauthors Robin Paige (a husband and wife team who have the best photo ever on the back flap) follows the mysterious adventures of fictional husband and wife team Charles and Kate Sheridan in the British moorlands. The story weaves together several interesting subplots into an engaging mystery. I have read earlier books in this series and this is my favourite so far; it manages to touch on Dostoevsky worthy subjects without losing its easy readability.
The main characters are really compelling: an aristocratic forensic criminologist with a heart and an American author of gothic novels who writes (and sometimes acts) under the pseudonym Beryl Bardwell and sees no reason why marrying a British Lord should decrease her independence. Having said that, it is the subplots that really made this book shine for me.
Much of the story surrounds Charles’ work bringing fingerprinting techniques to Dartmoor Prison. The reluctance to accept and understand new science (in this case fingerprinting) made me think about some of my reservations with many new scientific theories; am I acting like the people who refused to believe in fingerprinting? The truth is, I don’t know; I would like to believe that it is more of me being a critical thinker and less ignorant fool but who knows. These thoughts were added to by the discussion about the role of punishment, and prisons, have in our society. This is a discussion that seems to have been forgotten in much of mainstream thought and the Rightness of prisons is taken for granted; I appreciated how Robin Paige disrupt that ease and make the reader question the benefits of imprisonment.
I also enjoyed the devotion of time to Aurthur Conan Doyle. I thought the treatment of the famed creator of Sherlock Holmes was honest yet sympathetic and I felt by the end of the book I had learned a small bit about the author and his life. I was able to feel confident about this knowledge because of the authors’ notes at the end of the book, which go into detail as to which components are based on non fictional events and even goes so far as to provide a list of references for further insight into the subjects.
I do have to make a dig about the fact the authors promote their previous books within the story, I call shenanigans and it felt like an advertisement was interrupting my reading. Regardless of that minor criticism, I can confidently recommend this book to fans of historical mysteries and I look forward to reading newer books in this series.
