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DEATH ON THE LIZARD
by Robin Paige
Berkley, February 2006
336 pages
$24.95
ISBN: 042520779X


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

DEATH ON THE LIZARD is the latest in the Edwardian series featuring Lord Charles and Lady Kathryn Ardleigh Sheridan.

The story takes place on the Lizard peninsula in Cornwall, England, and features real-life individuals Guglielmo Marconi, John Nevil Maskelyne, and Sir Oliver Lodge. When an employee of Marconi turns up dead and equipment he was working on disappears just after he claimed to have discovered how to block simultaneous transmissions, Lord Sheridan is asked to investigate.

While investigating the first death, another occurs -- both look accidental but could the US, France or Germany be involved? Lady Kathryn, Lord Sheridan's novelist wife, is invited to stay in a manor house near where the deaths occurred. Lady Kathryn discovers her hostess is having an affair with a handsome stranger on a boat in Frenchman's Creek.

An acquaintance of Lord Charles is seen creeping around in the bushes. He is using a false name and claims to be a birdwatcher. Add that the Prince and Princess of Wales are due to arrive for a special visit in just two weeks and you have an interesting story line.

Having lived in Cornwall I looked forward to reading this book. It is unfortunate that the novel reads as if the authors do not have much first-hand knowledge of the county. Several examples are:

A character says: "End of the earth, the local folk called it. Nothing beyond the toe of the Lizard but a great lot of water, and America." They might be confusing The Lizard with Land's End, the western most part of Cornwall.

The reader is told Marconi chose Cornwall because the people clung to their own Cornish language. In fact, the Cornish language died out in the 18th or 19th century. A small group of individuals in the 1970's tried to revive it, but without notable success.

Another character says: "Except for fishing and mining, there had never been much industry here, and with decline of the pilchard fishery and the closing of the tin mines, there was precious little employment to be had, except for catering to the trippers and tourists."

The Cornish would be surprised at this. Firstly it is out of time for the date of this story; and secondly no mention is made about the clay and pottery industry for which Cornwall is famous. Also locals would have referred to the English on holiday as 'emmits' (ants) rather than trippers.

When Bradford Marsden, the fictional director of the Marconi Wireless Telegraphy Company says to Lord Sheridan "George is Navy, you'll recall" it is laughable. If a peer of the realm didn't know that the Prince of Wales was a naval officer he would have had his sanity questioned.

Large portions of this novel read like a guide book or history book with long descriptions of roads, lengthy mention of pixies, and tedious detail of Marconi's character. How much more interesting all of this would have been had it been shown rather than told.

By page 60 there has been a lot of jumping around with back story with the actual mystery not starting to pick up pace until page 174.

At times, the authors seem to be writing a cross between a book for children and one for adults. However, if the reader can persevere through long passages of telling, and the frustration of being talked down to, there is still an interesting story to be read.

The authors have obviously done a tremendous amount of research on the life of Marconi. There is a list of characters at the beginning of the book and a small list of reference works at the end should the reader wish to know more about Marconi and the infancy of wireless technology.

Reviewed by Ginger K. W. Stratton, May 2006

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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