The year is 1888 and Veronica Speedwell, a 26-year old woman with a scientific bent, is trying to find time away from Stoker, her usual partner in solving crimes, because she's conflicted about their friendship perhaps turning into a romantic relationship. She's not sure what she wants, although she's quite vocal about never getting married. When Stoker's brother, Lord Tiberius Templeton-Vane, asks Veronica to join him on a journey to a small island where a longtime friend resides in order to bring some rare butterflies back to London, Veronica can't help herself. Veronica fends off advances from Tiberius in the train, and is annoyed when she finds out that their host, Malcolm Romilly, has been told that she and Tiberius are engaged.
Stoker appears after the train drops them off and they are about to take a boat to St. Maddern's Isle, where Malcolm resides in a castle. There's quite a bit of tension between the brothers, but as it turns out, Tiberius wanted Stoker to join them at the island, which is why he had forbidden him to come. The butterflies are forgotten for awhile as the visitors learn that Malcolm's bride, Rosamund, disappeared on their wedding day three years ago, and Malcolm really needs closure. He wants them to find out what happened to her. Is she dead or did she run away? The castle has secret passageways and priest's holes, which were hiding places for priests when Catholicism was taboo, but they were all checked at the time of Rosamund's disappearance.
The suspects include Malcolm's sister Mertensia (who cultivates plants, including poisonous herbs), Malcolm's sister-in-law Helen (a dabbler in seances) and her son Caspian. And perhaps even Tiberius, who wasn't present on the wedding day, but who was clearly in love with Rosamund.
Even though I had not read the first three books in the series, I didn't feel lost, although this book whetted my appetite for the earlier installments. I've been finding out that books like this one, written recently but set back long ago, are not the fuddy-duddy stories I expect them to be, especially when given a feisty heroine like Veronica!
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