Silent In The Sanctuary [Paperback]

Lady Julia Grey is a thirty-year-old widow who almost lost her life in Deanna Raybourn's debut mystery, "Silent in the Grave." The sequel, "Silent in the Sanctuary," opens in a luxurious rented villa near Lake Como in 1887. Julia, who narrates, has been enjoying Italy's picturesque sights and warm climate along with her brothers, Plum and Lysander, and their good friend, the handsome Alessandro Fornacci. Since she helped private inquiry agent Nicholas Brisbane hunt down her late husband's killer, Julia has developed a taste for intrigue and danger. She longs for "something more important than the embroidering of cushions or the pouring of tea to sustain me." Julia gets her chance for excitement sooner than she expects when her father, the wealthy and influential Earl March, peremptorily summons the siblings home to Bellmont Abbey, the family estate in England. The Earl is furious with Lysander who, without asking permission of his father, has wed a fiery Neapolitan woman named Violante. Since Lysander has very little money of his own, he is dependent on the Earl's financial support to cover his living expenses. If the earl were to cut them off, Ly and his wife would be destitute.

Although Julia is happy to be at home with her family, she dreads seeing Brisbane again. She cannot forget the moment when "we had both of us reached beyond ourselves" and kissed passionately. Unhappily, their relationship never progressed beyond that one feverish encounter, and she has not heard a word from him in five months. However, Julia still cherishes the pendant that he gave her bearing the lovely inscription, "For where thou art, there is the world itself."

Julia and her brothers arrive four weeks before Christmas to find a large group of guests in residence at March House: their saucy and sarcastic sister, Portia; the vicar and his new curate, Lucian Snow; their poor orphaned cousins, Emma and Lucy Phipps; Dorcas, a portly and cranky old aunt; Lucy's much older fiancé, the overbearing Sir Cedric Eastley; Henry Ludlow, Cedric's cousin and secretary,; Hortense, the Earl's lady friend and a former courtesan; and most shocking of all, Nicholas Brisbane and his future wife, the lovely widow, Charlotte King. It takes all of Julia's considerable pride, breeding, and restraint to keep from showing her true feelings towards Brisbane's intended: "She was a Fragonard milkmaid, a Botticelli nymph. I hated her instantly."

When one of the Earl's guests is murdered, Julia and Nicholas join forces to find and apprehend the perpetrator. In the course of the novel, people are robbed, bludgeoned and poisoned. The deliciously intricate plot features phantoms, gypsies, and jewel thieves as well as deception, secrets, shocks, and betrayals. Raybourn has come up with the perfect recipe for a Victorian murder mystery: Take one spunky and meddlesome heroine. Add a dark and handsome gentleman with a shadowy past and a tortured soul. Mix in family scandals and a dollop of murder. Sprinkle with a generous portion of witty and acerbic dialogue, and top it all off with an imaginative and unexpected conclusion. "Silent in the Sanctuary" is a marvel that will have Raybourn's mesmerized readers turning pages well into the night. Miss it at your peril.

First, my sincere apologies to the author and the publisher. Ms. Raybourn's publisher was kind enough to extend an ARC, and as such my review should have been published the day the book was available for sale.

I first came upon Ms. Raybourn's work in an unusual way. Having just finished The Thirteenth Tale, back in late 2006, I was browsing the bookstore looking for a book that might be similar, and written by a contemporary author. I didn't think I would find anything, but I was game, and up for the challenge. I came across Silent in the Grave on a display, and it caught my eye because the cover was red, and it vaguely, subconsciously reminded me of the cover of The Thirteenth Tale - although the only similarity is that red appears on both covers. A quick glance at the book description told me that I hadn't found what I was looking for, but I decided to read the first page anyway.

And I'm glad I did. I was immediately hooked, and instead of waiting to get a better price on Amazon, which I guiltily admit I usually do, bought the book at the store, and devoured it. Ms. Raybourn kept me just as entertained throughout the rest of the book as her opening paragraph had promised, and I greatly looked forward to the next installment in the series.

Now how odd is it, that when looking for something vaguely Victorian that spoke of ghosts and family secrets and tragedies, that I found Silent in the Grave? Because while that wasn't what I was looking for at the time, Silent in the Sanctuary absolutely was. It evoked memories of the Bronte sisters and Henry James, and was more what I was looking for two years ago. That's what this book is...a throwback to a different era. The hook isn't in the first sentence, but rather in the entire book. Ms. Raybourn gave herself quite a task, and she succeeded admirably. She brought together a large, diverse group of people, outfit them with unique yet sensible and believable personalities, and then told us a story that takes place in a cold, dank abbey that is quite possibly haunted.

Not a huge fan of romance, I found myself much entertained by the back and forth between Brisbane and Grey in the first book of this series, and it continues here, with a marvelous twist. In fact, there are so many twists in this book that it's nearly impossible to guess at where the story is headed.

In addition to Brisbane and Grey, there is a marvelous cast of supporting characters, all of whom are exceedingly well drawn. I kept waiting to encounter a character that stepped out of character, so to speak, because with the tangled web Ms. Raybourn was weaving, it seemed that something, somewhere, was bound to fall apart.

It didn't. Ms. Raybourn entertained me again, and masterfully managed all of the delicate, intricate threads of her story. I'm delighted that she didn't try to copy what made the first book such a success, that she listened to the story, and told it as it needed to be told.

In her second novel of the Lady Jane Grey series, author Deanna Raybourne has much to live up to. That she so successfully meets the challenge is a testament to the character and wit of her independent widow at odds with an enquiry agent, Nicholas Brisbane, who gets under Julia's skin at every turn, indicative not only of a professional sense of competition, but also a romantic tension that fails to materialize as the two lock horns and intellects, murder at the heart of each contretemps. Returning from five months in Italy with her two brothers, a new sister-in-law and a charming young gentleman with a crush on the widow, Lady Julia arrives in Sussex at her father's home, Belmont Abbey, for a protracted Christmas family gathering. Unexpectedly, among the earl of March's guests is none other than the enigmatic and profoundly stubborn Brisbane, who blandly introduces Julia to his fiancé. Not to be outdone, Julia proffers her handsome gentleman in turn.

Critiquing Brisbane's intended, Julia finds the woman lacking. Pretty enough, to be sure, but not of the intellectual caliber one would expect from Brisbane. Her suspicions piqued, Julia believes something is amiss and vows to keep her eye on the couple, at the same time attending to her temperamental new sister-in-law, as well as a visiting clergyman, and two poor-relation cousins, one of whom has brought her wealthy, elderly fiancé with plans to be married in the Abbey chapel that weekend. Beginning their usual fractious repartee, Julia and Brisbane have once more begun to circle one another when a scream rings out; a man is found dead in the chapel, the about-to-be-wed cousin standing near the lifeless body clutching the blood-stained murder weapon. With everything in chaos, the cousin claims the right of sanctuary, unwilling or unable to answer further questions. Later that night, when she and her devoted sister suffer the consequences of someone's ill-intent, it is clear that this family holiday is not going as planned.

With the aura of a baroque late 19th century drawing room melodrama, the setting is gothic and mysterious, four centuries of ghosts in good company with a killer who mixes among the other guests. Terrified that the culprit might be one of her kin, Julia must consider every possibility, no matter how distasteful, following Brisbane's lead, but forging a singular path as her own stubborn nature prevails. Accidentally thwarting Brisbane's investigation, Julia is adequately remorseful, but as is her wont, her mistakes come at Brisbane's personal cost, all because she refuses to be dominated by another man since widowhood, independence part of this protagonist's charm. Stories within stories, wheels within wheels, nothing is predictable in this novel, not the murderer, nor the eclectic assortment of guests, including a jewel thief and a deeply bitter man who craves society's approbation, nor the two combatants, Julia and Brisbane, who fuel yet another romp through the dark halls of murder and a relationship yet to be acknowledged. A charming, irresistible novel. Luan Gaines/ 2008.