The Coroner's Daughter by Andrew Hughes

Final Rating: 3.8/5

“The beginnings, perhaps, of an intriguing collection.”

  In 2015 a strangely magnetic summary accompanying The Convictions of John Delahunt caught my attention and directed me into the expansive brooding atmosphere of punishing secrets, intricate metaphors and an overall impressive vintage flair with words that stayed in my mind and outside conversations for months. It was not only wonderful to find a distraction at that time from real life but a warped period puzzle all in a debut was quite something and I have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of Mr. Hughes latest mystery caper ever since. Overall I liked The Coroner's Daughter and fully admit the opening lines to this novel called to my (disturbing) dark sense of humor, honestly how can you not want to continue reading (or hold back a chuckle) when you first come across: “For my eighteenth birthday, Father promised me the hand of a handsome young man, which he duly delivered mounted in a glass bell-jar.”

  After that delightfully odd introduction, a familiar foreboding ambiance soon followed and era details kept my full attention. The urgency of the answers to the growing mystery were all nicely drawn out until the end as well but sadly like The Convictions of John Delahunt there were a few slips into modern sounding dialogue, contemporary expectations placed around the narrator and confusing spaces of action where I had to stop or reread to understand how a character arrived at a destination or where the narrator was in the chapter. It also seemed the beginning held the best passages and the final solution a little simpler than I had hoped but still this medical mystery/drama set in “the Year Without a Summer” with an inquisitive-natured narrator is one I would revisit again.

-purchased and read on kindle