The Body on the Doorstep
A dark and compelling historical murder mystery
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Murder and smuggling, conspiracy and treason - Can Reverend Hardcastle catch a killer?
For fans of Antonia Hodgson's, The Devil in the Marshalsea, and M.J. Carter's, The Strangler Vine, The Body on the Doorstep is the first Romney Marsh Mystery by A. J. MacKenzie Kent, 1796. Shocked to discover a dying man on his doorstep - and lucky to avoid a bullet himself - Reverend Hardcastle finds himself entrusted with the victim's cryptic last words. With smuggling rife on England's south-east coast, the obvious conclusion is that this was a falling out among thieves. But why is the leader of the local Customs service so reluctant to investigate? Ably assisted by the ingenious Mrs Chaytor, Hardcastle sets out to solve the mystery for himself. But smugglers are not the only ones to lurk off the Kent coast, and the more he discovers, the more he realises he might have bitten off more than he can chew.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The execution of British author MacKenzie's mystery debut, a series launch, falls short of its intriguing premise. Late one night in the spring of 1796, Marcus Aurelius Hardcastle, a Kent rector, is busy composing a letter to a newspaper warning that Britain's coastline is vulnerable to an invasion by the "blood-stained minions" of the French Republic when he's interrupted by a pounding on his front door. When Hardcastle opens it, he finds a man dying of a gunshot wound on his doorstep. Before expiring, the victim utters the cryptic words, "Tell Peter... mark... trace." Hardcastle feels compelled to investigate, despite being warned not to by his church superior, and engages the aid of Amelia Chaytor, an intrepid and prepossessing widow. The plot line is solid enough, but the main characters are less developed than Imogen Robertson's Crowther and Westerman, another late-18th-century male investigator paired with a widow. MacKenzie is the pseudonym of Marilyn Livingstone and her husband, Morgen Witzel, who have jointly written many academic works of nonfiction.
