Category: books

Choice of Darkness is a tale of blighted love and mass murder based on the hunt for the biggest serial killer in nineteenth-century America.

Jad Adams tells the story of Henry Holmes from the point of view of the detective who tracked him down, burdened by a love betrayed.

Frank Geyer is a detective in Philadelphia who in 1894 is called to investigate the death of Ben Pitezel.  He encounters Dr Henry Holmes who says he is acting for Pitezel’s family to collect the insurance money.  Holmes had been best friends with Geyer in their home town of Gilmanton, New Hampshire, they have unfinished business over a woman. 

Alerted by the insurance company, Geyer seeks Holmes in what becomes a journey to redeem Geyer’s life as he discovers how his former friend left horror after horror in a killing programme across the United States.

Set in the gilded age of American history, Choice of Darkness is a meticulously researched study of this late nineteenth century criminal, and the police methods used to bring him down.

Jad Adams has worked as a television producer and a newspaper journalist.  He is best known for his works of history including Decadent Women: Yellow Book Lives, Tony Benn: A Biography and Women and the Vote: A World History.  He is the author of another novel, Café Europa.

My thoughts: I knew about HH Holmes from reading Devil in the White City, but this takes an interesting angle on that story, by positioning the detective Frank Geyer, who tracked Holmes across the US, as the protagonist. He’s in a unique position as he and Holmes were childhood friends and Holmes left town with the woman Geyer was planning to propose to.

It starts with him being contacted by an insurance company, Holmes is one of the people coming to Philadelphia to identify a body in order to claim an insurance payout. Holmes says he’s doing it for the dead man’s family, the deceased being his friend and business partner. But as with all of Holmes’ many, many crimes, there’s something off about his sincerity and Geyer is suspicious. He begins looking into the man he knew as Henry Mugett.

From medical schools to police departments from as far away as Texas, the truth about Holmes starts to emerge. He’s a conman, a thief and if Geyer can prove it a murderer. In fact, he’s America’s first serial killer – a term that didn’t even exist back then.

At first Chicago’s detectives don’t want to know, they even throw Geyer in a cell, but later they come to him asking for help. Holmes has gone too far and attracted their attention. Geyer has been inside the “castle” his old friend turned nemesis built in Chicago, the place where dozens of people met their terrible end.

It’s these deaths Chicago want Holmes for, Texas is still after him for horse theft, there’s multiple dodgy insurance claims, the kidnapping that haunts Geyer. Will they find the answers in Holmes’ house of death?

Compellingly written, Geyer is a sympathetic figure, while he does have a personal score to settle, it’s overwhelmed by the many terrible things Holmes has done since they were both young men in Massachusetts.

This was a very interesting and enjoyable angle to take as you feel like you’re in Geyer’s shoes as he traverses the country trying to track Holmes down and bring him to justice.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.

On the Island of Philae in the upper reaches of the Nile Valley, Nofret, the new priestess to the Temple of Hathor, has left Dendera in the north where she received her training. She now has her own temple to govern.

The hierarchy makes her welcome, but as she settles into life on the island, she slowly realises that her predecessor’s death may not have been straightforward.
Hearing different versions of the event, she takes it upon herself to find out what really happened to the Priestess Safiya and finds that the island holds its own secrets, which lie beneath the temple buildings.

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Glennis Goodwin is a British author who has long held an interest in the myths and culture of the Ancient Egyptians. Along with that, the people of southern Africa have also been of interest and in the early 1980s, she was fortunate to live and work in Zambia.
In her working life, she has gone from Nursing to Retail and from Academic Publishing to PA, but during that time she never lost the feeling that Africa gave her, and, in those years, had holidays in Egypt and Kenya.
In 2004, she aimed to return to her nursing career and enrolled in New Zealand on a refresher course. Settling into life on the other side of the world, she continued to further her career, met her husband and made her home there.
Sadly, a brain haemorrhage and slight stroke ended her study, but after her recovery, she found herself wanting to write, something she had longed to do but never seemed to have the time for. Returning to the UK in 2017, she settled down at her computer, and over the following months, the tales of the Eight Deities of the Primordial Chaos came to life in the story of Malian, the altar tender. Her first book, The Eighth Deity, then came into being and The Gods of Chaos, a fantasy adventure series, was born.
Now living in a Nottinghamshire village, she has since written Brotherhood of Apep, In the Footsteps of Ra, and The Papyrus of Ma’at, her second, third and fourth books. Her fifth, and final title of the series, The Bow of Horus, is published here. Currently, she is looking to expand
her writing while using the knowledge gained from her trips to Egypt and is working on an Ancient Egyptian murder mystery set on the banks of the Nile.

My thoughts: a young priestess is given her own temple of Hathor to lead, but her predecessor’s death was far from a straightforward accident. There is something rotten at the heart of the temple complex of Philae and Nofret must tread carefully, unsure who to trust, as she investigates.

Underneath the complex lies a labyrinth of tunnels and tombs. Someone has been stealing and selling the grave goods of the priests and priestesses resting there, it must be someone working with the temples, assisted by an outsider, but as a newcomer Nofret doesn’t know the island’s secrets. 

She puts her life at risk to get answers, both to the thefts and the murders. A special ceremony offers the opportunity to expose the criminals but the answers she uncovers are not as expected. Can she still stop the perpetrators?

Nofret is an intelligent and educated woman, sent to serve her goddess as a child, she’s risen far in the hierarchy of Hathor’s followers. The high priest has somehow missed all the intrigue and crime going on beneath his nose, but as someone with an outsider’s perspective, Nofret can see more clearly.

It’s a clever and intricate plot, replete with secret passages and high risks, not least the crocodiles and hippos along the island’s edge, Nofret has no real allies except a little cat that has adopted her, and possibly the local governor, whom she confides in. Despite its ancient setting, this could easily be a modern-day mystery, people after all, have always been people.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.