Stevie‘s review of The Key in the Lock by Beth Underdown
Historical Gothic Mystery published by Viking UK 13 Jan 22
I love a good atmospheric gothic mystery, and the southwest of England is one of my two favourite settings for the genre (the other being Yorkshire). While the Victorian era is particularly well-suited as a backdrop, the First World War is a great period for ghost stories and unexplained deaths. So this book set alternately in 1888 and 1918 has all the elements we could possibly need, especially when you throw in a fatal fire at a crumbling country house. Our narrator is Ivy, the daughter of the local doctor in 1888, and it’s clear from the outset that she’s hiding something. However, she will also come to realise that her memories of events are coloured by the lies of at least one of the other people involved.
We first meet Ivy in 1918, as she prepares for her first Christmas following the death of her son in the War and the incapacity of her husband due to a stroke. The events of the past year serve to remind Ivy once again of the death thirty years earlier of a much younger boy – the grandson of the local mill owner – and a visit from a friend of Ivy’s son leads her to believe that she is being held responsible by fate for the second death, as a result of the part she played in concealing the truth of the first. Ivy decides to commit her memories to paper and also starts to investigate the circumstances behind her son’s death. Was it suicide as his friend implied or was there another reason for him to place himself in the line of fire, seemingly needlessly?
As Ivy begins her investigations, she comes into contact once again with the father of the boy killed in 1888, with whom she had once planned to elope. As a girl, Ivy had believed him to be a victim of circumstances, who would have kept his promises to her, were it not for a second fatal fire on his father’s property, following which Ivy again obscured some of the evidence, thinking she was helping preserve the good reputations of all involved. As Ivy continues to dig through her memories, and those of other people, she begins to wonder whether any of what she did was for the best, especially in terms of the one secret she is reluctant to dig into too deeply at first: regular payments by her husband to a ‘Mrs Smith’ and a bequest in his will to the same woman’s son.
When the true identity of Mrs Smith is revealed, Ivy unwittingly places all of them in danger, and it is only her quick thinking and meticulous planning that once again turn events in her favour.
I really enjoyed this book, and while I was caught out by some of the big reveals, it was obvious after the fact that the clues had been there all along. I definitely want to read more from this author.
Grade: A
Summary:
‘I still dream, every night, of Polneath on fire…’
By day, Ivy Boscawen mourns the loss of her son Tim in the Great War. But by night she mourns another boy – one whose death decades ago haunts her still.
For Ivy is sure that there is more to what happened all those years ago: the fire at the Great House, and the terrible events that came after. A truth she must uncover, if she is ever to be free.
Read an excerpt.
