Review of The Frozen Shroud by Martin Edwards
5 stars
An engrossing English mystery, one of a series but
functioning well as a stand-alone (and an introduction to the series), “The
Frozen Shroud” encompasses quite a cast of characters—and three mysteries a
century apart. In the very small village of Ravenbank, in the Lake District, a housemaid
was murdered, battered to death, prior to World War I; her damaged head was
wrapped in a shroud. Her ghost is said to walk the paths around the estate
house where she lived and around the nearby lake, every Halloween. Five years
ago another woman was murdered, similarly, also covered in a blanket. Now it is
Halloween again, and while joy and conviviality ride the surface, underneath
are many venues of discontent, anger, jealousy, and rage.
Author Martin Edwards balances this extensive cast of
characters, and the multiple murderous events, very well, inspiring the reader
with hunger to turn the next page and a constant stream of “but what if—it happened
this way?” I did not want to put the novel until I had completed it; and I
definitely intend to look up the other novels in this series and put Mr.
Edwards on my authors-I-must-read shelf.
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