Review: The Crooked Medium’s Guide to Terror, by Stephen Cox

The Crooked Medium’s Guide to Terror (The Crooked Medium 2)

True terror is a murderer you can’t stop.

London 1882. A carpenter is killed by a train – an eerie, brutal crime. Flamboyant medium Mrs Ashton and her sapphic partner Braddie seek justice for the widow.

A charismatic new medium takes London by storm. Dock-lass Maisie sees her frightening prophesy of vengeance. A noble family is devastated, but worse is to come.

Outgunned and bewildered, the three confront a deadly conspiracy. They risk losing everything.

A reckoning from beyond the grave.

Giveaway

Win 4 x Signed Books by Stephen Cox (Open to UK Only)

Prize includes – Our Child of the Stars, Our Child of Two Worlds, The Crooked Medium’s Guide to Murder and the Crooked Medium’s Guide to Terror.

*Terms and Conditions –UK entries welcome. Please enter using the Gleam box below. The winner will be selected at random via Gleam from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email. If no response is received within 7 days then Rachel’s Random Resources reserves the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over. Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. This will passed to the giveaway organiser and used only for fulfilment of the prize, after which time Rachel’s Random Resources will delete the data. I am not responsible for despatch or delivery of the prize.

Purchase Links

THe crooked medium’s guide to TERROR

https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/the-crooked-medium-s-guide-to-terror

My Review

I thought I’d read the first book in this series, the characters and author seemed familiar, but possibly not?

The setting is an alternative late Victorian London where some people are actually able to speak to the dead, and Spiritualism is a despised but real religion.

The main characters as Mrs Ashton, widow and medium, and Mrs Bradshaw, secretary, Suffragist, and political organiser. They have a protégé called Maisie, at a school for posh girls, paid for by an Earl, patron of Mrs Ashton. They have a friend and mentee called Emma, who is a school teacher in Kent, and on whom Mrs Bradshaw has a crush. And then there’s Leo, Mrs Ashton’s spirit guide, who is spending his afterlife making up for the misdeeds of his life.

One day, Mr Oliphant, former boxer, now gymnasium manager, arrives with a young lady, Ageta Svensson. She has lost her fiancé, David Gittens. The police claim accidental death while drunk, Miss Svensson and Mr Oliphant claim murder. Mr Gittens did not drink, swear or fight, went to church regularly and was engaged to marry Miss Svensson. But he’s black, a boxer, theatre stage hand and occasional heavy when debtors need persuading. So, his good character must be ignored in investigating his death.

Mrs Ashton and her Braddie immediately start investigating. Utilising both the natural – her many contacts in London – and the supernatural, Mrs Ashton gets the first hints that something terrible was involved.

Meanwhile, Maisie is staying with her friend Tommie, eldest daughter of Lord and Lady Hanbury, at their fancy London house. They have a visitor, the newly arrived Madam Moray, a medium of impressive strength, who will perform a séance for the family and their other guests. It doesn’t go well.

From here the investigation into Mr Gittens’ death and the strange events at the Hanbury’s move closer together. Who is Madam Moray? Why do the spirits of London disappear when she is around? What is the evil spirit riding on her carriage?

It gets worse when Tommie’s brother Gerard is kidnapped from his school and Maisie and Tommie’s school is attacked. Lord Hanbury, sceptical of mediums, accepts help from Mrs Ashton in this investigation.

It took me a while to get into the book, maybe the first four chapters, but once I did, I couldn’t put it down. I think the issue was that there’s backstory the reader really needs to know from the first book, A Crooked Medium’s Guide to Murder. I picked a lot of it up as I got into the novel, but the references to Leo’s name in life, how a Dock kid like Maisie ended up in a posh school, how they came to have Earl Robinbridge as a patron, and why Inspector Bullfinch hates Mrs Ashton is still a mystery to me.

The child characters are the most fun, they’re all teenagers and getting up to fun that scares their parents/friends, but with the agency of rich kids and independent poor kids to get away with a lot of things. They survive all sorts of traumatising events, including kidnappings, a school on the Norfolk coast, attempted kidnappings, spirit possession, and wearing fancy dresses (Maisie).

The adults deal with more important things, like fighting monsters, investigating murders, and putting aside their prejudices.

Generally, it was quite a fun read, and particularly shows the multiculturalism on 19th century London, the political climate of the time, and the vast gulf between the rich and poor of the city.

Once I get more bookshelves and can unpack my books, I’ll check I don’t have the first book in this series and buy it, so I actually get the reference!

Author Bio

My grandmother told me I read too much. I remember walking in the garden when I was small, telling myself stories. It was over thirty years of wanting to be a novelist before I tried… and succeeded.

The Crooked Medium’s Guide to Murder was much loved. It arose because I wanted to write about Britishness and specifically about Englishness; about our complex relationship with the past; I wanted leads who were morally grayer but still capable of kindness. Personally, it was time for a novel with queer leads. And these difficult times I needed to write something with some uplift. I always intended more than two books. The Crooked Medium’s Guide to Terror is spookier, and more dangerous. It throws all three women out of their comfort zone.

I spent nearly all my childhood in Bristol, and I’m now an adoptive Londoner. I live with my partner, and it’s lovely my two adult children come back from time to time. Our garden rages wild.