WATCHERS OF THE DEAD

A reporter’s work in the African Colonial Service offers him
insights into a series of murders reportedly committed by cannibals.

At the opening of the Royal Courts of Justice in 1882, Alec
Lonsdale learns that Alexander Haldane, barrister and newspaper owner, has been
hacked to death in the basement. This is just the first of several deaths
attributed to the Kumu cannibals brought over from Africa to spice up the
opening of the British Museum’s Natural History Branch. Tim Roth, Lonsdale’s
friend from Africa, has not breathed a word of this story, but Hulda
Friederichs, Lonsdale’s clever and ambitious fellow reporter on the Pall Mall Gazette, somehow
knows about it. Lonsdale is constantly dogged by Henry Voules, whose wealthy
father got him a job on the
Echo, a rag willing to print his ridiculous stories, including a
pack of lies about Roderick Maclean’s recent escape from Broadmoor, where he
was confined after trying to shoot Queen Victoria. Lonsdale, who lives with his
barrister brother, Jack, is becoming more uncertain about his feelings for
Anne, the fiancee he fears is becoming more like her narrow-minded sister,
Emelia, Jack’s fiancee. He’s also being pressured by their father, Sir Gervais
Humbage, a snob who abhors Lonsdale’s profession. The next victim is professor
Dickerson, who brought the Kumu from the Congo and squired them about the
country. Despite the mounting pile of bodies, all killed the same way, Scotland
Yard insists they were not murdered and assigns the case to their dullest
detective. Lonsdale, Hulda, and Inspector George Peters, the Yard’s star
detective, quietly continue to investigate. At least four of the murdered men
were members of the Garraway Club, which includes a group calling themselves
Watchers, who rumor suggests are preparing a nasty surprise for Christmas.

Beaufort’s second puzzle for his journalist sleuths (Mind of
a Killer, 2018) is
thronged with real-life characters and almost too many twists and turns for
comfort.