Silent in the Grave - Deanna Raybourn

...ashamed, and let them be silent in the grave'''



This is one of the very last phrases that Sir Edward Grey sees before he dies of a seemingly innocent long-standing illness. The first time his wife, Lady Julia Grey meets the mysterious Nicholas Brisbane, is when he is helping her with her husband who had just collapsed in front of all of their dinner guests. It takes Lady Julia nearly a year before she believes Nicholas’ ...
...It transpires that Sir Edward approached Brisbane before he died to hire him as a detective as he had been receiving threats against his life. It is only when Lady Julia is cleaning out her dead husbands possessions that she stumbles across the last note hastily hidden from view.



Determined to now find out the truth about her husbands death, Lady Julia approaches Brisbane again and enlists his help in finding her husbands ... more

Let the wicked be ashamed, and let them be silent in the grave

This is one of the very last phrases that Sir Edward Grey sees before he dies of a seemingly innocent long-standing illness. The first time his wife, Lady Julia Grey meets the mysterious Nicholas Brisbane, is when he is helping her with her husband who had just collapsed in front of all of their dinner guests. It takes Lady Julia nearly a year before she believes Nicholas’ outlandish claims that her husband was in fact murdered. It transpires that Sir Edward approached Brisbane before he died to hire him as a detective as he had been receiving threats against his life. It is only when Lady Julia is cleaning out her dead husbands possessions that she stumbles across the last note hastily hidden from view.

Determined to now find out the truth about her husbands death, Lady Julia approaches Brisbane again and enlists his help in finding her husbands murderer. It will be trickier than she thought; her husband was well liked or so it seemed, coupled with the fact that he has been dead nearly a year with a clear cause of death that points to a genetic problem running in his family. Has the trail gone cold, or will Brisbane and Julia find out what happened to her husband and what his crime was to deserve such notes as the one above…?

My Thoughts

I noticed this series of books featuring the pairing of Lady Julia and Nicholas Brisbane after reading a glowing review, I was certainly taken by the teaser that I had read. The combination of murder mystery and setting in the 1880’s was quite appealing to me. I loved the rich family setting and the language used throughout the book. Lady Julia’s family are a bunch of characters, her father in particular was an interesting character and it was shame that he didn’t have more of a major role in the book. His ideas about life and women’s role in society was probably way ahead of his time; positively encouraging his daughters to enjoy and think for themselves. As a result, Lady Julia’s character had more chance to challenge the restrictions placed upon her by the society she lives in and her high position in that society.

Having said that, Lady Julia is probably the most conventional out of her slightly potty family and finds it harder to really “let herself go”. Despite her lesbian sister Portia positively encouraging her to spice up her life and her father practically suggesting that she take Nicholas Brisbane as a lover, Julia finds it hard to really break free from the chains of her position. Although she is the most straight laced, it was good fun reading her struggle to be both a proper lady and needs to break out, and all the more pleasurable to read about her sudden outbursts of telling Brisbane and others exactly what she thought of them! There is some great humour injected into this book which is all the more funny due to the society in which they are living in. It kind of reminded me slightly of Mark Gatiss’ books about Lucifer Box, although not as dark.

The enigmatic Nicholas Brisbane is definitely a character that piqued my interest early on. Brooding, sexy and intelligent, he is a force to be reckoned with. In this particulary book, Lady Julia seems to hog most of the limelight when it comes to solving the murder, but it is quite obvious that Brisbane is meant for a bigger part in the series in the following books, there are some interesting and curious parts of his personality that are revealed as well as some fascinating clues as to his own history which make him all the more intriguing. Not only that, there is some kind of sexual tension between Nicholas Brisbane and Lady Julia which heavily suggests a possible romance in the next books…

However, it did take me a very long time to get through this book and I quickly grew tired of how slowly I felt the story was progressing. Despite interesting characters, and a promising storyline, I didn’t feel the desire to pick up the book and read until I found the answer; in truth I felt slightly bored with it, and any desire I had to pick up the book was due to the fact that I just wanted to finish it.

There were glimmers of this becoming an exciting story, but although the story promises danger to Lady Julia when she is closer to the truth, it really didn’t live up to that promise. It just really lacked the excitement required to make this a great murder mystery. There was no sense of urgency when it came to chasing the murderer, and even less when the murder was revealed. In fact, the ending almost passed me by it was so inconsequential! A book in this genre really needs to have me up at 4am biting my nails, eyes wide desperately flicking through the pages to find out whether the hero/heroine makes it out alive and whether the killer is unmasked! This story gave me no such pleasure!

I felt quite disappointed that this didn’t live up to it’s hype as the wonderful setting, historical attention to detail and interesting and sometimes humorous language make it such a promising and interesting series to read. I really felt that there was just so much lacking in the storytelling - perhaps it improves in the later series - but I don’t think I’ll pick up another unless one literally lands free in my lap - too many good books to read and too little time to read them all!
 

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