DEATH'S LONG SHADOW

A stranded Victorian noblewoman further disrupts the unconventional governance of her place of refuge.

From the moment of her arrival, Lady Stanton makes clear her disapproval of the arrangements at Thorncroft House, which is run by a board of trustees that includes doctors, lawyers, and former servants, since Lady Croft is recently dead and her son mentally incapacitated. But she can hardly dictate the terms of her stay, since she arrives during a blizzard with a groom and a footman who are mortally ill from the cold and a maid who refuses to leave the side of the groom, who’s the father of her unborn child. Housekeeper Harriet Rowsley whisks the sick and grieving to the family wing, where they convalesce under the care of Dr. Page and Nurse Webb, and assigns Florrie, one of the housemaids, to attend Lady Stanton. Lady Stanton repays her kindness by grousing about everything while flirting shamelessly with Harriet’s husband, land agent Matthew. Matthew and Harriet have limited time to spend placating their fractious guest, since they need to set about fulfilling the terms of the late Lady Croft’s will. Matters become murkier when their living quarters are ransacked and Mary, the youngest of the servants, is found dead on the service stairs. Perhaps because of the number and diversity of problems she must handle, the normally efficient Harriet seems tentative and adrift and Cutler’s solutions to the multiple mysteries, superficial and incomplete.

Quirky but unsatisfying.