cover image The Death of Kings

The Death of Kings

Rennie Airth. Viking, $27 (368p) ISBN 978-0-399-56345-4

The strangulation murder of actress Portia Blake in Kent, in 1938, propels Edgar-finalist Airth’s excellent fifth John Madden mystery (after 2014’s The Reckoning). In 1949, Angus Sinclair, formerly a chief inspector, now retired, asks Madden, who has left London’s Metropolitan Police, to reinvestigate the crime. Although Owen Norris, an itinerant farmworker with a history of violence against women, confessed to Blake’s murder and was executed, Sinclair is unsettled to receive an anonymous letter suggesting that Norris was innocent. The letter includes a jade pendant purporting to be the one that disappeared from the corpse. Despite his lack of any official status, Madden agrees to poke around quietly into the old case, in the hopes of finding sufficient evidence to warrant the police reopening it. The passage of time and the intervening deaths of people who could have shed light on what happened make this a daunting task. Golden age fans looking to pit their wits against a savvy sleuth will be more than satisfied. Agent: Joy Harris, Joy Harris Literary Agency. (Jan.)