An Inquiry into Love and Death

AN INQUIRY INTO LOVE AND DEATH
Simone St. James
NAL Trade
March 2013

I have awaited the publication of Simone St. James' new book An Inquiry into Love and Death ever since reading last year's The Haunting of Maddy Clare, set in the years after WWI. Maddy Clare is a chilling combination of ghost story, mystery and historical fiction that captures the social upheaval and the effect of the devastating war on the young men who fought it. 

In An Inquiry into Love and Death, Jillian Leigh is a young student at Oxford University's Somerville College, in 1924 the only Oxford College to admit women. The daughter of a world-famous chemist and his glamorous wife, Jillian is completely focused on achieving academic excellence. So it is with great dismay that Jillian learns that her Uncle Toby has fallen off a cliff and been killed near the seaside village of Rothewell. She had very little contact with Toby as a child and none since she was fourteen, when her father and his brother became completely estranged. As Toby was the family eccentric- a ghost hunter- Jillian has always thought that to be the cause of the estrangement.She must go to Rothewell and identify the body and pack up Toby's effects. Her parents are out of the country and say that they can't return. 

Upon her arrival in Rothewell and occupation of Toby's rented cottage, unsettling and frightening events occur and Jillian not only begins to believe that Toby was murdered, but that the village ghost is all too real. The spirit of a long-dead smuggler, Walking John has menaced the village since the 1700s. Close behind her is the arrival of Inspector Drew Merriken of Scotland Yard who also claims to think that Toby was murdered. Jillian and Drew feel an instant attraction but he definitely has secrets of his own. By the books end, Jillian's life is endangered and her very identity is in question.

An Inquiry into Love and Death is an intriguing look at an unsettled time and a cracking good ghost story. The mysteries of Rothewell are many, and I had no clue who was at the bottom of what is going on. I wish that this was not a stand-alone story as I would love to see these characters again. However, I think I must just wait for the next novel, Silence for the Dead in 2014.

See my review of The Haunting of Maddy Clare at http://notabooksnob.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-haunting-of-maddy-clare.html)

RATING- 4 Stars