Death at Dartmoor (Charles and Kate Sheridan Series #8)

by Robin Paige

Overview

“A sentence to Dartmoor Prison is a sentence to a living hell…” Lord Charles Sheridan and his American wife, Kate, have heard some truly awful things about Britain’s most notorious prison. But Dartmoor and its mist-shrouded environs hold special appeal for both Sheridans. Kate hopes to find inspiration for her new Gothic novel, while Charles plans to implement a fingerprinting program at the prison—and arrange a meeting with one of its most infamous inmates, Samuel Spencer. He’s convinced that Spencer—a Scotsman who admitted to killing his wife—is, in fact, innocent. What’s more, he believes he has the evidence to prove it. But Spencer continues to maintain his own guilt—and, as if to confirm it, he soon stages a daring prison escape. Lord Charles and his acquaintance Arthur Conan Doyle are most perplexed by this odd turn of events. And when a body turns up on the moor, it’s up to the two men—and the clever Kate—to discover if the missing convict is connected to this murderous new case…

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780425189092
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/04/2003
Series:	A Victorian Mystery , #8
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.74(w) x 4.12(h) x 0.95(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Robin Paige is the pseudonym of husband-and-wife team Susan Wittig Albert and Bill Albert. Susan Wittig Albert is the author of the China Bayles mysteries Thyme of Death, Witch's Bane, Hangman's Root, Rosemary Remembered, Rueful Death, Love Lies Bleeding, Chile Death, Lavender Lies, Mistletoe Man, and Bloodroot. Bill Albert is the coauthor, with his wife, of more than sixty novels for young adults. They live in the Texas hill country.

Date of Birth:

1940

Place of Birth:

Danville, Illinois

Education:

Ph.D., University of California at Berkeley

Editorial Reviews

A fantasia on themes from The Hound of the Baskervilles whose focus on the Sheridans shows an altogether more lighthearted side of the moors than Doyle ever revealed.”—Kirkus Reviews

 

“Robin Paige’s detectives do for turn-of-the-century technology and detection what Elizabeth Peters’ Peabody and Emerson have done for Victorian Egyptology.”—Gothic Journal

“Paige has crafted another convincingly detailed Victorian mystery, sure to please fans and new readers alike.”—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

After an inmate escapes from prison -- and a body turns up on the moor -- Lord Charles Sheridan and his American wife, Kate, join forces with Arthur Conan Doyle to determine if the convict and the killer are one and the same.

bn.com

Mysterious Dartmoor is the darkly atmospheric setting for Paige's latest installment in the Victorian series (after 2001's Death at Epsom Downs) featuring Sir Charles Sheridan and Kate Ardleigh Sheridan. Sir Charles is visiting Dartmoor Prison as part of his ongoing project to fingerprint prisoners, while Kate is doing research for one of the "penny dreadfuls" she writes under the name Beryl Bardwell. The Sheridans have been invited to attend a seance at Thornworthy Castle, the home of Sir Edgar Duncan and his beautiful wife, Rosalind. Their fellow guests include the noted author Doctor Arthur Conan Doyle and a journalist named Fletcher Robinson, with whom Conan Doyle is collaborating on a new story. When one of the attendees at the seance whispers of murder, the others look askance, but a dead body soon turns up. Meanwhile, a murderer has escaped from Dartmoor Prison, one in whom Sir Charles had taken great interest. Sir Charles suspects the man may be innocent of the crime for which he was imprisoned, but now Charles and Kate must prove as well that the accused killer isn't responsible for this latest murder. Charles finds himself working with the famed author, who has something of a reputation for being interested in unusual crimes. Though Conan Doyle disconcertingly comes off a bit self-interested and stubborn, Paige has crafted another convincingly detailed Victorian mystery, sure to please fans and new readers alike. (Feb. 5) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Talk about dedication. When Lord Charles Sheridan's American wife Kate wants to research locations for the latest novel she's setting on the Devon moors, her devoted husband ensconces her in unlovely Princetown, in the shadow of Dartmoor prison, so that he can indulge his fondness for amateur criminology while she soaks up atmosphere. Since Kate's old friend Patsy Marsden, intrepid photographer and traveler, is also on hand, along with their acquaintance Arthur Conan Doyle, who's researching his own tale of the moors, the sojourn promises pleasures both scenic and social-as well as an opportunity for Charles to bend prison officials' ears about the breakthrough science of fingerprint analysis and to interview Prisoner 351, Dr. Samuel Spencer, a Dartmoor guest ever since midway through his trial for killing his wife, when he unaccountably changed his plea to guilty. What comes as a bonus is unscheduled mystery: Soon after Spencer escapes from Dartmoor, local squire Sir Edgar Duncan is found murdered-a shocking development foreshadowed during a seance Lady Rosalind Duncan had arranged with medium Nigel Westcott. While Doyle, more successful as romantic lead than detective, chases false clues, Lord Charles, who's just "like Sherlock Holmes . . . only smarter," uses a convenient eyewitness to the killing to bring the guilty to book. A fantasia on themes from The Hound of the Baskervilles whose determined focus on the Sheridans (Death at Epsom Downs, not reviewed, etc.) shows an altogether more lighthearted side of the moors than Doyle ever revealed.

Kirkus Reviews