art by Ileana Hunter. Design by Ash Collins
The Kensington Quartet; Four Charlotte Holmes mysteries set in Europe during the Great War.
Munich, 1914.
Charlotte Holmes, a brilliant polymath, and her former companion Dr Watan, an Indian doctor, are reconciled and engage in their most complex and daunting case.
Europe, the Summer of 1914: In the shadow of a looming conflict, Charlotte and Branwell, together with their families, undertake the Grand Bavarian tour.
Unbeknownst to her, Branwell is on a secret mission for the British Foreign Office to find and expatriate a British industrial spy. However complications arise when the German secret police track down the spy and Branwell is forced to enlist the help of his wife Becky.
Fear grips Europe as high-ranking officials are assassinated, attacked by a mysterious wolf-like creature, and the perplexed authorities turn to Charlotte and Watan to help solve the mystery.
Our heroes cross swords with a new adversary, a brilliant scientist engaged in human experiments designed to create a superweapon for the coming war.
A baffling case hides a deadly secret, the corruption of innocent at the expense of their sanity; can Charlotte survive her most perplexing case?
Author's Notes - Spoiler Warning
The story picks up two years after the events of book 5, A Wedding in Winchester, and deals with the start of the Great War, mixed in with the adventures of our heroes.
The key theme is nature vs nurture, how much of a person's characater is governed by their inherited traits and how much by their upbringing. The exploitation of that forms a core part of the plot and the book explores what this means in real life.
Once again I play with formats, in this story it's a mixture of Hitckcock's The Lady Vanishes and also Fritz Lang's M (about a child murderer) with a touch of Hammer Horror. In this book the threat is external and our heroes rise to the occasion to battle with devious scientists.
The core plot of this book came together very quickly and key scene came almost ready formed - the only benefit of the current COVID pandemic.
Enjoy!
