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When a young woman walking home alone along a deserted country land after a night in the pub is strangled and left for dead, Detective Inspector Wesley Peterson doesn't know what to make of her claims that her attacker had the head of a dog. Not long afterwards, a second girl is found dead, this time horribly mutilated and wrapped in a white linen sheet. A figurine left with the body is that of the jackal-headed god, Anubis, but what has Ancient Egypt got to do with a murder investigation in the West Country? Peterson's friend, county archaeologist, Neil Watson, has been called to Varley Castle to provide advice to its owner about how to deal with a valuable collection of artifacts collected by the castle's former owner, Egyptologist Sir Frederick Varley. Varley's great-granddaughter, Caroline, wants to have the collection catalogued and valued before the house is signed over to the National Trust. Neil is intrigued by the artifacts and even more intrigued to discover that Varley's son was believed to have killed four women. Ellis sets up an intriguing narrative on several levels. Although it is clear from early on that there has to be a connection between past events and the current murders, the various strands of two very different times are skillfully woven together. I find flash-backs as a narrative device often clumsy and intrusive, but here the short chapters in the present tense, telling the tale of one of the previous inhabitants of the castle, provided intriguing bookends for the main story. I was surprised to learn that this is in fact the fifteenth book featuring DI Peterson and Neil Watson as the story seems remarkably free of the sort of baggage that a long-running series often drags along with it and I'm now very curious to see how the blend of police-work and archaeology is dealt with in their earlier outings, so on that level the book was very much a success. The story was, on the whole, decently plotted, but for characters that have been around for so long, neither of the protagonists felt particularly well fleshed-out. Aside from that, this is a competently written police procedural that interacts quite satisfactorily with the world of professional archaeology. § Linda Wilson is a writer, and retired solicitor, with an interest in archaeology and cave art, who now divides her time between England and France.
Reviewed by Linda Wilson, August 2011
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