Ross Montgomery starts a new series of historical crime novels in fine style with The Murder at World’s End. Set in 1910, during the passage of Halley’s Comet, Montgomery delivers an upstairs/downstairs, manor house, locked room murder mystery with a fabulously foul-mouthed investigator. And while at first blush many of these elements are seem a little hackneyed, Montgomery manages to invest quite a bit of new life into them.
The Murder at World’s End is narrated by ex-con and newly minted second footman Stephen Pike. Pike has spent all of his money making the journey from London to Tithe House, a remote property joined to the coast of Cornwall by a causeway that isolates it with the tide. The Butler, Mr Stokes, knows about Stephen’s past but agrees to give him a probationary place given that the staff need to prepare the house to be locked down and sealed in the widespread belief that the tail of Halley’s Comet will spread poisonous gas and bring about the end of the world. Stephen is also given the unenviable task of looking after the Viscount’s curmudgeonly Aunty Decima Stockingham. When the Viscount is found dead the following morning in his locked study, Decima is determined to find the culprit and ropes in Stephen, who has become a prime suspect, to help.
The Murder at Worlds End is a classic manor house mystery – an isolated property with hidden servant passageways, full of potential suspects both among the guests and the staff, and, of course, some long held family secrets. It is also a classic locked room murder mystery – the victim found on his own in a locked and sealed room shot through the eye with a crossbow (the same way his father died) and with no murder weapon apparent. The wild card here is the investigative pair of the naïve and trying-to-go-straight Stephen Pike and the entitled, sweary and provocative Decima Stockingham. The pair are joined by a range of bizarre characters including a German scientist, a worryingly death-obsessed child and an inept detective. While many readers are likely to guess the who and how dunnit before they are revealed, they will be having enough fun getting there to not let that spoil their enjoyment.
The Murder at World’s End is being pitched as the first in a series of Stockingham and Pike mysteries. There was definitely enough here to bring readers back for more.
The Murder at World's End by Ross Montgomery
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