Season of Darkness by Cora Harrison

Season of Darkness by Cora Harrison ISBN-13: 9780727888761 Hardcover: 240 pages Publisher: Severn House Publishers Released: July 1, 2019

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
When Inspector Field shows his friend Charles Dickens the body of a young woman dragged from the River Thames, he cannot have foreseen that the famous author would immediately recognize the victim as Isabella Gordon, a housemaid he had tried to help through his charity. Nor that Dickens and his fellow writer Wilkie Collins would determine to find out who killed her. Who was Isabella blackmailing, and why? Led on by a series of notes discovered by Isabella's friend Sesina, the two men track the murdered girl's journeys from Greenwich to Snow Hill, from Smithfield Market to St Bartholomews, and put their wits to work on uncovering her past. But what does Sesina know that she's choosing not to tell them? And is she doomed to follow in the footsteps of the unfortunate Isabella


My Review:
Season of Darkness is a mystery set in 1853 in London. Wilkie Collins helped his friend Charles Dickens to solve the murder of a maid that Dickens once tried to help educate through Urania Cottage. Wilkie and Sesina, a maid who was best friends with the dead girl, were the main view point characters. They went about solving the murder in their own ways, though Sesina was tempted to blackmail the murderer (since she feels she's very clever) while Wilkie and Dickens wanted to turn whodunit in to Inspector Field. The characters were interesting and well developed. Even the secondary characters had realistic motives for why they acted as they did (hiding information, searching for answers, etc.).

Historical details about what London was like at the time were woven into the story and played a role in the mystery. Suspense was created by the danger to Sesina as she tried to uncover several people's secrets in her attempts to discover whodunit. While I correctly guessed whodunit early on, it was very reasonable that the characters didn't see it. I read this book out loud read, and the other two "readers" didn't think I was right even up to the reveal, so whodunit isn't obvious. We all enjoyed the story. There was no sex. There were a few uses of bad language. Overall, I'd highly recommend this enjoyable historical mystery.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.


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