“TO DUST YOU SHALL RETURN”

       By Donna Fletcher Crow

                    A Lord Danvers Mystery        

2011 Book Review #81

BOOK COVER

It is January 1855.  Three years have passed since her marriage to Lord Charles Danvers, and still there is no heir to the earldom.  Antonia fears Charles will soon be asking a lot of questions…questions she’s afraid to answer.  For it seems the only heir she is raising is the oppressive, dreadful feeling growing within her.

With this secret weighing heavily on her mind, she and Charles stumble upon a mystery.  Frail, elderly Catherine Bacon has been murdered.  Though the slaying is blamed on traveling “dustmen”, Charles begins to track clues to the mysterious death through the streets of Victorian Scotland.

Meanwhile, Antonia, trying to shake the irrepressible helplessness within her, absorbs herself with a favorite hobby…antique shopping.  What she discovers in one of the shops stops her in her tracks!  There, in a window, is a figurine that belonged to the late Catherine Bacon.  This mystery suddenly has a new twist.

Antonia continues to track clues to the crime, clues that lead to a shocking discovery.  All the while hoping nobody discovers the truth she’s been hiding.

My Thoughts:  This is a new author for me and I liked the book very much.  It paints a portrait of Scotland in the mid-1800s which is vivid and honest.  If you like books reflecting historical periods, you will like this one.