At the opening of TWILIGHT AT MOORINGTON CROSS, many a mystery reader might guess at villainy: Mrs. Amelia Pembroke, a lovely young widow, is a long-term patient at Cluett's Mesmeric Hospital in Regency-period England. She's not getting better — her ailment involves falling asleep at moments entirely outside her control, along with some sort of seizure disorder. Mesmerism, of course, is another term for hypnotism; Amelia's not the only long-term patient here who seems stuck.
When the handsome young solicitor Ewan Hawkins arrives to help the hospital leader with a change to his will, the bequest directly concerns Amelia. To her astonishment, she is the main beneficiary of that will. But the conditions being pinned to this are, to say the least, astonishing: The widow must marry one of two candidates that Mr. Cluett has proposed, or else fail to receive the money. In fact, not only will she herself be tossed from her home at the hospital if she fails to make that marriage -- but the substantial inheritance will go to charity instead.
Amelia is appalled. The solicitor doesn't much sympathize -- he thinks Mr. Cluett was generous in giving her a choice of willing husbands, since a woman on her own couldn't possibly handle the bequest.
So who is the villain here? Is it Mr. Cluett, whose treatments have failed? Is it the solicitor, or one of the rather odd potential husbands? Could it be the long-term nurse who worked with the doctor? And which of these is responsible for the abrupt death, perhaps by murder, of Mr. Cluett as soon as an explanation of the will has been made?
The only people Amelia is sure are on her side are the other long-term patients, who have become her best friends. But when she accepts the young solicitor, Mr. Hawkins, as an ally in a suddenly ominously threatening institution, he's not as confident about any of the others:
I nodded and turned to leave but he grasped my arm: "Mrs. Pembroke, promise me one thing."
"Yes?"
"I need you to be careful."
"Of course I will, but—"
His fingers tightened. "I mean a great deal more so than usual. Lock your doors tonight. You might have a maid pull a trundle into [the neighboring] room if possible. And above everything else, don't trust anyone. Not until we know exactly who might be involved in Mr. Cluett's death."
Abigail Wilson's writing is smooth and deft, and her plot threads and red herrings are carefully placed. The story is lightly backed by Regency customs, and more so by the legalities of widowhood at the time, laid out effectively and without fuss. Both action and sleuthing are lively and believable, and the pace is well chosen.
All in all, TWILIGHT AT MOORINGTON CROSS presents a well-crafted romantic Regency mystery that's a delight to read, and may well lure readers to Wilson's other four titles in the same entertaining genre.
Released today under the Thomas Nelson imprint of HarperCollins.
PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.
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