The Silent House of Sleep

The Silent House of Sleep

By Allan Gaw

The Mysterious Press, 2026. 277 pages. Mystery

No one who meets Dr. Jack Cuthbert forgets him. Tall, urbane, and brilliant, the Scottish pathologist is the best that Scotland Yard's new detective chief inspector has seen. But Cuthbert is also a damaged man--a man who lives with secrets, and who still battles demons brought back from the trenches even ten years after the end of the Great War. When not one but two corpses are discovered in a London park in the winter of 1929, Cuthbert must use every tool at his disposal, including cutting-edge forensics of the period, to solve the mystery of their deaths. In the end, the horrifying truth is more shocking than even he could have imagined.

This is one of the most compelling mysteries I've read in a long time. Jack Cuthbert is such a sympathetic and interesting character, and the flashbacks to his time at university, and in the trenches during World War One flow seamlessly with the story taking place in 1929. Warning: the murders are pretty grotesque, and maybe not for a weak stomach. If you can handle the gritty details, though, the story and characters make it worth the journey. I'm looking forward to the second book coming out next year.  

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A Test of Wills

By Charles Todd

New York: Harper. 305 pages. Mystery

In 1919 Ian Rutledge returns to his career at Scotland Yard after fighting in the war, still suffering from shell shock. His next case, with a war-ravaged ex-soldier as the witness, could spell disaster for him.

No Graves as Yet

By Anne Perry

Ballantine Books. 363 pages. Fiction

On a sunny afternoon in late June 1914, Cambridge professor Joseph Reavley learns that his parents have died in an automobile crash. Joseph's brother, an officer in the Intelligence Service, reveals that their father had been en route to London with a mysterious secret document--allegedly possessing the power to disgrace England and destroy the civilized world. Now that explosive paper has vanished, and Joseph is left to wonder: How had it fallen into the hands of his father, a quiet countryman? But Joseph is soon burdened with a second tragedy: the shocking murder of his most gifted student, who was loved and admired by everyone. Or so it appeared. As England's seamless peace begins to crack, the distance between the murder of an Austrian archduke and the death of a brilliant student grows shorter every day.

MGB