Best known for her procedural series featuring English village police detective Gil Mayo (A Sunset Touch
, etc.), Eccles delivers a satisfyingly complex stand-alone, spanning the years from 1894 to 1909. This acute psychological study slowly untangles the web binding the fortunes of an Armenian patriot, an amnesiac accident victim and various members of the aristocratic Chetwynd family and the wool-selling Armitages of Yorkshire. Dexterously shifting from London to Shropshire to the British South African outpost of Mafeking, Eccles explores women's fight for suffrage and traditionally male careers, the breakdown of distinctions between the old nobility and the rich merchant class, and political upheavals in South Africa. Eccles's narrative skills and the myriad contextual details make it easy to forget the mysterious murder victim found on a Shropshire estate until pulled back by the episodic efforts of the police to solve the crime. (Aug.)
