This is my first blog post of September. It may also be the only one I'll write this month. There are only ten days left. The House on Graveyard Lane by Martin Edwards is #4 in the historical Rachel Savernake series, but it's the only book I've read so far by this author. I read it because a book club that I attend online had selected it. I received a copy via Net Galley.
One character in this novel complained about protagonist Rachel Savernake's unhealthy obsession with murder. This amused me, but it occurred to me that I should have seen such a remark before while reading a murder mystery. Mysteries do tend to have protagonists who are preoccupied with murder, and they also have more ordinary characters. So I wonder why these more ordinary folk in other mysteries have never reflected on the strangeness of the protagonist's predilections. Not that Rachel Savernake really is particularly strange. In fact, I didn't consider her a standout character at all. I felt that other characters seemed more central to the narrative.
One of the more prominent characters in The House on Graveyard Lane is Kiki de Villiers. This is her married name. Her husband with the French surname is said to have come from South Africa. I was curious about French immigrants to South Africa and found a very interesting article about Huguenots in South Africa on Wikipedia. Huguenots are French Protestants. They probably fled to South Africa due to persecution by the Catholic majority in France beginning in the 16th century.
Kiki had numerous extra-marital affairs--some with very prominent men. From my perspective, Kiki's adventures weren't worth the space that the author devoted to them.
There was a financial scheme involving defrauded investors.There was also a murder in which a corpse was altered. I didn't really find any of the plot developments all that interesting. It was just a series of sordid shenanigans. I don't feel that it was worth my time.
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