The Mourning Bells

February 16, 2015
An intriguing though ghoulish premise sparks Trent’s fourth Victorian whodunit featuring London undertaker Violet Harper (after 2014’s Stolen Remains). Violet, who disapproves of “safety” coffins that enable the mistakenly interred to alert the world above ground that they are still among the living, is stunned to experience just such a phenomenon. On arrival at Brookwood train station in Surrey, Violet, who has been escorting a casket on the journey, hears a bell ringing from another coffin. The bell is attached to a string within reach of the body inside, and the noise prompts her companion to undo the lid, which reveals a disoriented but very much alive man, whose first word is “havfindabang.” That bizarre occurrence proves to be the first of several. Murder soon follows. Trent nicely integrates the Debtors Act of 1869 into the plot, though the dogged, feisty lead unconvincingly bites off more than she can chew. Agent: Helen Breitwieser, Cornerstone Literary.

February 1, 2015
The peculiar Victorian fascination with all aspects of death causes an undertaker to ponder the good and bad features of safety coffins. Undertaker Violet Harper does not use safety coffins herself, but her interest in them is sparked by an incident en route to a funeral at suburban Brookwood Cemetery on the London Necropolis Railway. As she waits on the platform for the arrival of the coffin for the funeral she is to supervise, she hears a safety bell suddenly ring on one of the coffins. Opening it discloses a confused but clearly living man who's quickly taken away by a physician who has offices nearby. Violet is shocked, but when the same thing happens a second time, she grows suspicious, and when a young woman becomes hysterical upon the arrival at Brookwood of another safety coffin containing her fiance's body-a body not prepared in any way for burial-Violet undertakes a sleuthing expedition among London undertakers with the help of her newlywed daughter, Susanna, who's visiting from Colorado with her husband, Ben. She meets varying degrees of cooperation and hostility, and Susanna meets with worse: She's attacked as the family walks home in the dark from a circus performance. So Violet goes to Scotland Yard to talk to DCI Hurst (A Virtuous Death, 2014, etc.), who agrees to look into her story even though he's not much interested in it. Every time Violet thinks she's found a solution, her theory turns out to have some flaw. All the while, her determination to find the truth puts her in grave danger. The pace is glacial, despite, or perhaps because of, the extensive and interesting exploration of Victorian mourning practices.

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April 1, 2015

Victorian undertaker Violet Harper is not prepared for bodies to rise from the dead. Always skeptical of the newfangled fad of safety coffins--equipped with literal bells and whistles the mistakenly buried person can ring--Violet reevaluates her position after several corpses turn out to be live bodies. With the help of her visiting daughter, Susanna, she investigates her own profession with unsettling results in this thrilling fourth installment (after 2014's Stolen Remains).

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