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“Everybody is a book of blood; wherever we're opened, we're red.”
―
Reading Prompt: ‘Books with ‘Blood’ in the Title’.
In this post we’ll uncover the spine-chilling secrets of the Northern Territory! From ancient Lancashire witches weaving spells, to not-so-elusive vampires stalking the halls of a party cruise ship. But the most haunting enigma? A lost – very beautiful – woman who has vanished without a trace even though she is beautiful and you should probably have seen her on account of how beautiful she is.
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Happy Reading, Friends!
Cover Synopsis:
“New Year’s Day, 1889.
In Edinburgh’s lunatic asylum, a patient escapes as a nurse lays dying. Leading the manhunt are legendary local Detective ‘Nine-Nails’ McGray and Londoner-in-exile Inspector Ian Frey.
Before the murder, the suspect was heard in whispered conversation with a fellow patient—a girl who had been mute for years. What made her suddenly break her silence? And why won’t she talk again? Could the rumours about black magic be more than superstition?
McGray and Frey track a devious psychopath far beyond their jurisdiction, through the worst blizzard in living memory, into the shadow of Pendle Hill—home of the Lancashire witches—where unimaginable danger awaits.”
“We’d started off chasing a single madman, only to plunge ourselves into the swamp of intrigues of the Ardglass clan. Their family affairs linked to an ‘underground coterie of smuggling witches" (p205).
This is Book 2 of a historical Detective series, following McGray and Frey who work in the ‘Commission for the Elucidation of Unsolved Cases Presumably Related to the Odd and Ghostly’. Cool! You can check out our review of the first book “The Strings of Murder” for a recap of the series so far.
This instalment kicks off in 1624 where 6 witches have been found guilty of being … well … themselves – and are being hanged. As we all know, a witch on her way out likes to throw a curse or two, and this time is no exception. Lord Ambrose and his family are in the crosshairs and get their comeuppance for prior dastardly deeds.
250 years later, we join the good Dr Clouston as he admits Lord Ardglass to a mental asylum at the request of his family. We also get a glimpse into the events that put Pansy (Detective McGray’s sister) into the same asylum. We jump a further 6 years later, and join back up with our detectives – McGray and Frey – in January of 1889, a few months after the events of the Book One. We can stop jumping now.
I enjoyed the banter between Frey & McGray – they have a grudging respect that’s often tested by their unwillingness to follow each other down ambiguous paths. Their office is a ‘moth-infested, damp-plagued pit’ according to Frey, ‘the dumping ground’, filled with piles of McGrays occult books and artefacts, which do help them a little with this case. As the team delve deeper into the history of the witches, there are pots of poisoned tea and science-based concoctions keeping the duo on their toes & testing their patience with each other.
“It’s not what you can do, it’s what others believe you can do that gives you power.” (p359) The author includes some interesting notes at the end of the book, about the history of the Lancashire witches, outlining some of the science behind common effects and potions – methanol, hallucinogenic spores etc. A fun read.
Now on an unrelated note, I just have to pop out and restock my cauldron with glow-in-the-dark geckos.
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“On the Baltic Sea, no one can hear you scream.
Tonight, twelve hundred expectant passengers have joined the booze-cruise between Sweden and Finland. The creaking old ship travels this same route, back and forth, every day of the year.
But this trip is going to be different.
In the middle of the night the ferry is suddenly cut off from the outside world. There is nowhere to escape. There is no way to contact the mainland. And no one knows who they can trust.
Welcome aboard the Baltic Charisma.”
This was a nice surprise, and a lot of fun to read. Are you a cruise person? Or is the thought of “getting to be on a ship with thousands of strangers in the middle of the ocean” your idea of a nice time? If it is, maybe pack some garlic just in case.
In this book we’re introduced to quite a cast of characters, but they’re all well defined and I didn’t have any trouble keeping track of who was who.
The ‘Baltic Charisma’ built in 1989 holds approx. 1200 passengers, and is a Swedish cruise ferry – essentially a cheap place to drink and party that travels the same route day after day, year round. “But on this particular cruise, there are two passengers unlike any the ship has ever seen. A small blond boy, around 5 years old, and a dark-haired heavily made-up woman have just climbed out of their caravan.” (p19).
It’s not a spoiler that very early on we realise that the ‘old woman’ and ‘young boy’ are in fact vampires. These are not twilight vampires though, their flesh shifts in waves and when some unlucky souls get bitten and start to change, their human teeth shift and fall out along with other gross bodily changes. These vamps can go out in the sunlight and cross thresholds unhindered. They’re kept in check by a hierarchy of vamps called ‘The Old Ones’. Once bitten, it can “take anything from hours to months before they become sentient creatures again.” (p275)
This cruise sounded like my nightmare even before the vampires turned up. I think we can all agree that parties are the worst. I found it frustrating that no-one was yelling ‘vampires!’ early on – or really at any stage. As far as I understood it, this book was set in our world – Twilight vampires were referenced by the vamps themselves, and yet we get over 270 pages in before the characters go – ‘you know what, think it might be vamps.’ What a revelation! They were still debating it with half the ship turned on page 437 lol – “Vampires. Maybe its a sign that he is losing his mind, but the word makes everything fall into place.” (p437)
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“When Emily’s beautiful cousin Aspen goes missing somewhere in the Outback, no one seems to take it seriously, not even the police. After all, Aspen has a history of drug use and a string of broken relationships to her name. Emily knows that her disappearance is totally out of character, even for the family’s wild child, so she books a flight to the Northern Territory to find her.
Emily’s search takes her south of Darwin to every road stop and tourist trap she can find, but the only person who turns up is the last person she expected to see, her ex-husband Ben. But there is a violent killer on the loose, a man the media have dubbed ‘The Outback Killer’ – and after two brazen attempts on Emily’s life, it soon becomes clear that someone wants Emily gone too, someone who is willing to do anything to stop her following Aspen’s tracks.
Set in the bustling streets of Darwin and in an alternative-lifestyle commune outside of Tennant Creek, and told with McGinnis’s trademark colourful and poetic style, this is a gripping tale of the danger and lawlessness of Australia’s wild and remote places.”
DNF’d this one at the 50% mark, unfortunately.
Our main character Emily Fisher is looking for her missing cousin, Aspen. As the story is set in 1995, we can’t just use the magic of the internet to find her. Emily has no idea where to start looking for her cousin, other than she heard she’d gone to the Northern Territory. “When I was fairly certain she was making for Alice Springs, I took a fortnight off and flew there myself. Then I got a list of every place offering accommodation and set out to visit them all.” (p37) Even in 1995 wouldn’t you call first?
The amount of times Aspen was referred to as beautiful, actually made me physically flinch. It was essentially her only description and Emily just cannot believe that a person as beautiful as her cousin, could go missing without being noticed. On account of she is SO BEAUTIFUL.
The Northern Territory is such a big place to search & Emily seems to focus on places that Aspen would never step foot in (from her seemingly limited knowledge). “I still couldn’t see any of that interesting Aspen, but I would need to check it out.” (p15). Why?? She has no idea if Aspen was in a current relationship, what car she drives, or what might motivate her to go off-grid. “I couldn’t think of a place less likely to appeal to Aspen – but it was all I could come up with just then.” (p44).
By page 41 Emily is already assuming that Aspen has been taken by the white slavers – “I mean, she’s so beautiful, so blonde. Aren’t the men in some countries supposed to have a thing about blondes?” (p41)
My dislike and disbelief for the main character was cemented on page 53 when she chose the fish over the roast dinner just to spite her ex-husband who is there for no reason. They’d been separated with no contact for 7 years, and Ben turns up in the NT because he’s been keeping tabs on her through her family. Ew. Emily immediately goes from being her own person to a submissive fawning mess. Gross. He’s bossy and controlling and I think this is meant to come across as protective and sweet. He’s “changed” – who cares. Get in the bin, Ben.
At one point Emily gets stabbed at a market (p104) while asking around after Aspen. I have no idea who’d care enough at this point to want to stab her, or ‘put her off the scent’ as she has made zero progress or discoveries, still looking for Aspen in places she’d never go on page 115. Apparently they find some luck here though and the reception woman remembers her from Febuary.
The author has quite a few other books, and I’m sure there’s an audience for this one – but not for me, sadly.
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