Lady Emily and her husband, Colin, are spending time in
Normandy with his mother after their honeymoon was
interrupted by a murder. Emily is mourning the loss of
their child and, perhaps, the loss of her ability to have
children. Emily is sunk in melancholy and living with a
disapproving mother-in-law isn't helping the situation.
Colin tries to be sympathetic but doesn't understand
her refusal to move on.
When Emily discovers the tortured body of a young woman in
the forest, she will be drawn into an investigation which
will lead her into more danger. Even though she promises
Colin that she will be cautious, events spiral out of
control. At first, it appears that Jack the Ripper has
crossed the English channel. As the investigation
progresses, it becomes obvious that the killer is local.
Emily involves her good friend, Cecile, in identifying the
young woman. Cecile takes her to Rouen to meet the family
of the dead girl. There they find a family in turmoil. The
Prier family has put their eldest daughter, Edith, in an
asylum and hidden the fact. Their son, Laurent, resents his
parents easy dismissal of Edith from the their lives. Their
second daughter, Toinette, seeks attention by causing strife
in the family.
When Sebastian Capet reappears in their lives, Emily is
forced to take more of an interest in the investigation. He
leaves her tender notes and comforts her in her grief.
Sebastian also creates havoc in the neighborhood by stealing
a painting from Monet, depositing it with the Markham's,
and then stealing it back again. The Markham's are
neighbors of Mrs. Hargreaves who welcome Emily and Cecile
into their home.
The story is told from Emily's perspective with excerpts of
Mrs. Hargreaves diary. Emily is so sunk in misery at times
that it seems she won't recover from the loss of her child.
Her involvement in the investigation in Constantinople was
the cause of this loss,
and she is reluctant to involve herself in this latest
investigation. The investigation takes on a macabre twist
as they discover more bodies. Colin threatens to send Emily
back to London as he sees the toll the events are taking on
her. Her resentment leads her deeper into the investigation
and affects the atmosphere between the two. Only as Emily
confronts her fears and her mother-in-law's
disapproval, will her emotions start to lift and allow her
to think events through.
With a complex plot and multiple characters using more than
one name, it was a little hard to follow the storyline.
Overall, I was a little disappointed in the book, possibly
due to the fact that my expectations were too high.
After escaping death at the hands of a ruthless murderer
while honeymooning in Constantinople (Tears of Pearl),
Lady
Emily Hargreaves reluctantly agrees to recovers from her
wounds at her mother-in-law’s estate in Normandy.
The novel
opens as Lady Emily, out for a ride, suddenly comes
across
the body of a young woman who has been horribly murdered.
Her wounds are reminiscent of those inflicted on the
victims
of Jack the Ripper, who is wreaking havoc across the
channel
in London. Has he made his way to France?
Lady Emily and
Colin learn that the victim is the daughter of a high
born
family of French aristocrats who had been committed to an
asylum for the insane. While there, she had given birth
to
an illegitimate child who was spirited away, and may even
be
dead.
As Lady Emily pursues a trail of clues to the
beautiful medieval city of Rouen and a crumbling chateau
in
the country, she is increasingly disturbed to hear the
cries
of a little girl in distress who may or may not be the
ghost
of a murdered child. But then who is leaving blue ribbons
in
her wake? What is the nature of the bizarrely intense
relationship between them murdered woman and her unstable
brother?
When the doctor who had treated her in the asylum
is found brutally murdered and the body of the child’s
father is found hidden behind a wall in a cottage by the
sea, Colin is determined to send Emily back to England
before the killer strikes again.
But it’s too late. Emily is
on the verge of solving the mystery, when she is taken
captive by the madman in an isolated tower where she
hears
what sound like the eerie cries of a lost child. She
begins
to distrust her own sanity but must keep her head in a
terrifying game of wits against a cold and brilliant
killer
or she will be his next victim.
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