Murder At The Queen's Old Castle

Murder at the Queen's Old Castle (#827), is the second book in Cora Harrison's Reverend Mother Aquinas series I've read, and although it paints a grim picture of Cork in the 1920s, the mystery here is suitable to its setting.

Merchant Joseph Fitzwilliam has promised Reverend Mother her pick of flood-damaged goods at his low-end department store built in the ruins of a medieval castle in the center of Cork.  Although it's been years since Reverend Mother set foot in the place, a chance to pick up items for the orphans and poor children attending her primary school from Queen's Old Castle is too tempting to pass up.  In fact, one of her former students, an apprentice at the store, has been assigned to help her.  Mr. Fitzwilliam soon appears outside his cubbyhole office perched high up on one wall before pitching over the railing to land almost at her feet, watched by horrified customers and staff.

It soon becomes obvious that his death was not natural.  Who would have cause to wish Mr. Fitzwilliam harm?  The list of suspects grows, as he was discovered to be a rather unpleasant man, liked by neither the staff nor his family, all of whom but the eldest son work in the store.  Means and motive abound for several of them, yet how Reverend Mother eventually arrives at the truth is almost the death of her.

The plot is quite twisty, and the motivation and means quite dark and somewhat unexpected.  This is one of those rare mysteries where justice is not served up with a neat bow at the end, but the reader is not left in the dark.  Reverend Mother Aquinas remains a formidable character.

I just had to comment that I did not care for the cover artwork on this novel.  There is a dark castle on the left, but on the right is a looming dark figure.  I thought at first that it was the iconic figure of faceless Death in a hooded black robe, but when I took a second look, it seemed to shift to an image of a woman in an abayah.  I really had to think about the subject of the book to have that image morph into a nun in an old-fashioned habit seen from the rear.  Rather disconcerting, I thought.

I do love cover art.  When I mentioned how clever I thought the cover of Tara Westover's memoir Educated (See my post of  2/5/19.) is composed with a photo of a mountain landscape with its solitary figure integrated into the tip of a pencil, not one other person in my book club had ever paused to look that closely at the cover art.  You miss a lot when you don't look carefully!