Shadows of the Dead: An Inspector Stark Mystery

Set in 1921, Eldridge’s splendid second mystery featuring Det. Chief Insp. Paul Stark of London’s Metropolitan Police (after 2016’s Assassins) finds Stark in an awkward position. He has become the lover of Lady Amelia Fairfax, an affair that could cost him his job if it is revealed. When Lady Amelia’s ex-husband and a visiting American are murdered, the motive and, indeed, the main target of the crime are not at all clear: was it Lord Fairfax, a former colleague of Winston Churchill’s at the War Office, or the mysterious American? As he investigates, Stark begins to realize that the motive may be something far beyond a simple vendetta. Stark is a sensitive man with genuine depth, whose complicated private life sheds light on the realities of post-WWI London, including the striking inequities between rich and poor and the potentially treacherous political undercurrents that could reshape Europe. Cameo appearances by such people as a young actor named Noël Coward and an ambitious aspiring film director named Alfred Hitchcock add lightness. (May)