(Goodreads Description)
London in 1919 was a city of ghosts and absences, haunted by the men who marched away but never came back from ‘the war to end all wars.’
Grace Armstrong believes that she has come to terms with her own loss, the death of her fiancé, the brilliant and dazzling best friend of her brother. He was declared Missing in Action during the Battle of the Somme, but he starts to reappear both in her waking life and dreams.
Grace is appalled when a body, dragged from the Thames, is identified as Catherine Smith, who has lodged with Grace and her family for the last eight years before suddenly disappearing.
Catherine had been more than a lodger; she had become a close friend to Grace, who feels compelled to find out what happened. In doing so she is drawn reluctantly into the sordid and dangerous underbelly of London and a scandal that rocked Edwardian society. Soon Grace finds herself under threat, and the only person prepared to listen is the brooding Tom Monaghan. But Tom has dark shadows of his own to navigate before being able to put his past behind him to help Grace in her quest for the truth.
So, this is one of those books. You know the sort, the ones that start out with a bang and then, somehow, petered out.
I totally loved this one all through the first half. It sounded so realistic. The historical setting was spot on – if a bit expositional in places. There was Elisabeth’s mystery: she appeared to have been a very different person before she went lodging with Grace and her family, and I wanted to know whether she had changed or whether she was a misunderstood woman. There was the WWI tread, where Grace kept seeing her husband around the city, and it could have been her hallucinating, but maybe… And there were mysterious, unsettling dreams Grace was having about the war. There was also a thread concerning Grace’s mother that was very very mysterious in the first part of the book. I was so totally intrigued and desperate to learn how things stood.
Then, more or less halfway through, I don’t know why, I thought, “Are we sure the author will be able to bring this mystery home?” Maybe I sensed something. Maybe I subconsciously saw clues in the text, but right after that, things started to fall apart. Most of the mysteries of the story turned out to be not really mysteries. Grace’s mother is a perfect example: there was, after all, no mystery there, and in fact, that thread unravelled in a very uninspiring way. The same happened to all the others. The dreams, for example, which I was so desperate to learn what meant, turned out to mean basically nothing. They were just nightmares.
It was so very disappointing.
The mystery, in the end, wasn’t bad. It also made sense. But I felt that, with all the other things going on, it didn’t receive the space and emotions it deserved, and therefore, it turned out to be disappointing too.
It was a book with a great concept and with very ambitious aspirations. Personally, I think that if it had been executed more skillfully, it would have been smashing. Unfortunately, it wasn’t.
The Lodger by Helen Scarlett – This is a #historicalmystery set in the aftermath of the Great War, where people's past impacts the present with devastating power, demanding to be reckoned with, no matter what people feel like doing… Share on XThe Lodger
An excerpt
‘Oh, Miss Armstrong, ’tis her, look.’ She thrust the newspaper into Grace’s hands. ‘It’s Elizabeth. See the headline. “BODY FOUND BY LONDON BRIDGE”.’
Grace felt cold with fear. ‘What do you mean, it’s Elizabeth?’ She glanced at the front page. ‘
Didn’t I say there would be a death, Mrs Watson?’ Bridget turned towards her fellow servant.
The cook nodded, her mind on the food that was at risk of spoiling.
‘A bird flew into the scullery the other day and couldn’t get free, A sure sign of a soul struggling to stay in this world.’
Ignoring Bridget, Grace began to read the article and prayed inwardly that she was wrong. ‘The description is very vague. It could be almost anyone.’
Bridget shook her head. ‘No, look further down. At the description of the clothes. Now was she ever out of that blue coat in the spring and summer? And there, they say in the paper, “wearing a blue coat”, Even Mrs Watson agrees with me.’
‘I’m not one for hysterics, ‘the cook responded, briefly glancing across at Bridget, ‘but it seems strange. Elizabeth’s been gone two weeks and not a word from her. She’d live here, what, seven years?’.
‘Eight,’ Grace corrected her mechanically, her mind filled with dread. ‘Eight years and just gone without a backward glance.’
‘I’m surprised she hasn’t written or telephoned,’ Grace agreed. ‘But this?’ she gestured helplessly, ‘A body in the river. It can’t be Elizabeth.’
‘I have an awful bad feeling abotu it,’ Bridget continued. ‘And the police don’t know if the death was foul play or suicide, not that either wouldn’t be bad enough. I shudder to think of her dying at the hands of a murderer!’ Having given up on any help from the maid, Mrs Watson was busy checking the seasoning. She said darkly, ‘It will be connected to that man, the one you spoke of, Bridget.’
‘What man?’ asked Grace.
‘The one who came calling at the house, with a Rolls Royce motor car and chauffeur.’
The Thursday Quotables was originally a weekly post created by Lisa Wolf for her book blog **Bookshelf Fantasy** . It isn’t a weekly post anymore, not even for Lisa, but just like her, I still love to share my favourite reads on Thursdays and I still use the original template which included an excerpt.
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