Review: A Stolen Shadow

A Stolen Shadow by H.L. Marsay
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

This is the seventh book in the series featuring York detective Chief Inspector John Shadow. Shadow has just returned from a holiday in Italy and is immediately faced with the theft of a sabre from the local army regimental dinner, suspecting nothing more than alcohol-fuelled high-jinks or a prank Shadow isn't particularly invested. Then Sergeant Jimmy Chang persuades Shadow to attend a local amateur pantomime production featuring Jimmy's sister Angela, a local school teacher. Partway through the pantomime the lead actor, financial adviser Spencer Knight dies live n stage after drinking a 'magic potion'. As Shadow and Jimmy investigate it seems there is no end to the potential suspects, Spencer was a ladies' man with little respect for the institution of marriage. In addition, Spencer seemed to be running (in my opinion) a series of Ponzi schemes in which unsuspecting friends, little old ladies, and lovers invested their life savings only to lose everything.

Then only a few days later the body of one of the other pantomime actors is found murdered. Francesca French was married to Major Armitage, the person who reported the sabre stolen, until her affair with Spencer.

All-in-all a cosy English mystery. I haven't read the previous six books in the series and I found it easy to read this as a stand-alone although there were obviously some ongoing side stories. TBH I thought the murderer(s) was quite obvious early on but I enjoyed the discovery. What I found less easy to like was Shadow himself. I don't know whether he is intended to be York's answer to Morse, but I honestly thought this was set in the 1950s for quite a while because he is so old-fashioned (and I'm a fifty-six year old woman), if it wasn't for his late wife being Italian I suspect he would have been one of those people who won't eat 'foreign muck'. How he can be described as a lover of good food when he only eats Italian or pies is beyond me.

Anyway, I enjoyed it, recommended for fans of TA Williams' Armstrong and Oscar series.

I was offered an ARC by the publisher Tule for an honest review.

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