Tahiti, also called Otaheite, has been the land of dreams for many sailors since the voyage of 1769. A new voyage has now returned in 1812 from that same land, this time with a ship full of botanical cuttings and seedlings.
Unfortunately, something has gone seriously awry since the Solander returned to shore and now sailors are turning up dead. Thames River Police Chief Charles Horton is determined to find out what is killing the sailors, THE POISONED ISLAND is the second book featuring Charles Horton and is definitely a standalone novel, as I haven't read the first book, The English Monster. However, some of the relationships and politics between the various characters and police units seem to have already been established in the first book. It took me awhile to get caught up on some of the more subtle issues between the various factions. I would also suggest that anyone unfamiliar with some of the history at that time do a little research as Lloyd Shepherd seamlessly blends together the historical with the mystical. The richness of the tale will be better appreciated if the reader has a sense of the time period the book is set in, particularly the Ratcliffe Highway Murders.
Lloyd Shepherd's lyrical prose makes the flow of THE POISONED ISLAND seem beautiful, even amidst the deaths and gritty details of the murders. Some of his phrases are so poetical that I had to stop and savor them while others are quite witty for their unexpected and very British humor. Lloyd Shepherd does a marvelous job at breathing life into his characters and their worlds. While Charles Horton is the main character of the tale, the secondary characters are so well developed that I wanted to keep reading about them even as I wondered how the various threads of the tale would be resolved by Charles Horton. THE POISONED ISLAND is a thoughtful, lyrical historical thriller that keeps the reader guessing until the very last page is turned.
A brilliant young police officer discovers a series of
bizarre deaths are connected to the cargo of a research
vessel bound for Kew Gardens in this fantasy-tinged
historical thriller set in early nineteenth-century London.
London 1812. On a dull, gray June morning, the Solander, a
ship containing breathtaking plants and natural specimens
brought back from Tahiti for the Royal Gardens at Kew,
slowly pulls into dock under the watchful eyes of London
denizens.
The apparently successful expedition soon takes on a horridβ
and inexplicableβturn: the crew of the Solander starts dying
one by one. Thames River Police Chief Charles Horton can
find no signs of murder or suicide to explain the deaths,
and the shipβs surviving crew, which has made a pact to
remain tight-lipped about its voyage, further hampers his
investigation. Meanwhile, one of the specimens begins to
show frightening changes, forcing Horton to wonder just how
βnaturalβ they might beβ¦
Tahiti 1769. English sailors arrive on the shores of the
French Polynesian paradiseβa place of breathtaking natural
beauty where magic and ancient myths are alive and well. The
island nirvana, however, soon starts to disintegrate as the
explorers devastate the land with disease, death, and war.
But what they carry back with them aboard the Solander fifty
years later is far deadlierβand it is in the hands of
Charles Horton to determine exactly what it is and how it
might be stopped
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