A Bucket of Ashes
Author: P. B. Ryan
Copyright: 2007 (Berkley); 278 pgs.
Series: 6th, and Final, in the Gilded Age Mystery series
Sensuality: N/A
Where & When: Cape Code, 1870
Who: Nell Sweeney, governess, and Dr. William Hewitt
Summary: Nell has proven herself a model governess in the years she’s worked for the Hewitts. But now a terrible secret from her past — and the lurking suspicion that she might be carrying Will Hewitt’s child — threaten to rob her of everything for which she has worked so hard.
Comments: Nell has a lot on her plate. Her only surviving sibling, Jamie, is dead. He was a fugitive, wanted for the murder of Susannah Cunningham. Also occupying her mind is that fact that she’s pregnant with Will’s baby and Will is in France. In the previous book, the American ambassador asked President Grant for an experienced battle surgeon, and Will was offered the job. Nell even begins to question whether Will — rootless vagabond, cardsharp, and recovering addict — can ever truly settle down. He didn’t take the teaching job, which he loved. Nell knows he went to France for her sake. However, with a child’s future in question, Nell can’t help but wonder. Regardless of what she thinks of Will, the fact she needs a divorce first, and soon, remains.
With so much uncertainty in her future, it is a small relief to know that her mentor and former lover, Dr. Greaves is offering her so much support. He knows that Nell is pregnant and that her heart belongs to Will, even as she questions his reliability. Dr. Greaves is just the type person Nell needs in her life at the moment, especially when word reaches the Hewitts that the American ambassador has “lost” his battle surgeon. Ms. Ryan — thankfully — chose not to heap another heartache on Nell (and her readers) by permanently separating the couple. Will does return from France alive, if a bit worse for wear.
Other reviewers have stated that they were disappointed on how easily Nell’s problems were solved. I admit that the book felt rushed, but I thought that the resolution wasn’t as easily wrapped up as it could have been. What I mean by that is the author didn’t take an easy way out — killing off Duncan in a prison fight/riot, for instance — off-screen and no fretting about what the Hewitts will do if and when they find out about Nell’s past. That would have been too pat. Instead, the author makes Nell deal with having to explain herself to Viola Hewitt, and find a way to get a quiet, and quick, divorce.
Favorite Quotes:
“The only reason you feel unworthy of that award is that you’re mired in your old notion of yourself as flawed and undeserving. Frankly, I’m beginning to find that refrain fairly tedious.”
“I’ve never known you to be quiet the pitiless shrew. I find it captivating.”
– Nell, Will
Started: 7 June 2008
Finished: 9 June 2008
LOVED IT !!
Rating:
Murder in the North End
Author: P. B. Ryan
Copyright: 2006 (Berkley); 230 pgs.
Series: 5th in the Gilded Age Mystery series
Sensuality: N/A
Where & When: Boston, July 1870
Who: Nell Sweeney, governess, and Dr. William Hewitt
Summary: Colin Cook was the only officer in the city’s Detective Bureau not to be found guilty of corruption and to escape being demoted or fired. But now he is a fugitive, wanted for killing a petty criminal in Boston’s North End, and the police believe Nell knows where the Irish cop is hiding. Nell doesn’t know where Colin is, nor does she believe her friend is capable of murder. To prove his innocence, she descends into the seedy and dangerous slums of the North End to look into the matter. Nell isn’t afraid of her fellow immigrants in the neighborhood, but Dr. Will Hewitt has his doubts — and he won’t let her conduct the investigation alone.
Comments: The Hewitts have gone to the Cape for their annual summer retreat, but Nell has remained in Boston to clear Detective Cook’s name. The odious, and disgraced, ex-detective Charles Skinner is sure that Nell is conspiring to keep him hidden, and he has threatened Nell. This doesn’t weaken her resolve to help her friend, but it puts her in danger. Before she gets far in the investigation, Will shows up and offers to help her — and protect her from Skinner.
Will has returned from Shanghai, having realized that it’s too easy to give in to temptation. Will rather not loose his hard-won battle against opium addiction, or loose Nell’s regard, by returning to old habits. But nothing has changed for him in Boston, so Will is still in the same predicament he was before — in love with a woman he can’t have. He has two job offers to contemplate while helping Nell clear Cook’s name: take the five year teaching contract at Harvard, or go to France at President Grant’s request. Something has changed, though. Nell has begun to question her devotion to the Catholic Church. Will’s words to her at Gracie’s birthday party,the previous year, have affected her more than he knows — that it would be the Church, not God, turning its back on her if she was excommunicated. For the first time, Nell is willing to pursue a divorce.
The ending is even more heart breaking than the previous book.
Favorite Quote:
“You befriended me when I needed a friend, you saved me when I needed a savior. Your presence in my life has shone a light upon my soul that will never be extinguished. For that precious gift, I shall be forever in your debt.”
– Will’s note to Nell
Started: 7 June 2008
Finished: 7 June 2008
LOVED IT !!
Rating:
Murder on Black Friday
Author: P. B. Ryan
Copyright: 2005 (Berkley); 230 pgs.
Series: 4th in the Gilded Age Mystery series
Sensuality: N/A
Where & When: Boston, September 1869; January 1870
Who: Nell Sweeney, governess, and Dr. William Hewitt
Summary: When two acquaintances of the Hewitts, Nell’s wealthy employers, are found dead on Wall Street’s first “Black Friday”, most people assume they committed suicide after being financially ruined. Yet upon closer examination, Nell’s trusted friend, Dr. Will Hewitt suspects that one of the men was actually murdered. With little more than her Irish wit and indomitable will to guide her, Nell sets out to help Will find the culprit. But as the investigation progresses, the pair discovers that the two men were linked by something more valuable — and far more treacherous — than gold.
Comments: Will is currently teaching medical jurisprudence at Harvard Medical School, with the condition that he be allowed to conduct postmortems on any of the interesting corpses in Massachusetts General’s morgue. By interesting, he means those individuals who’s death were violent or unexplained. That’s how he ended up performing autopsies on Noah Bassett and Philip Munro.
The two men’s deaths were as different as their lives. Noah was a member of the Brahmin elite — old money and lineage — but whose financial situation was in dire straits even before the Gold Market plummet. He left behind two, unmarried adult daughters — Miriam and Rebecca. Philip, only thirty-nine and unmarried, was a financial genius and a self-made man. Wealthy, and without lineage, he was still an outsider to the Boston elite. Men like Noah Bassett went to Philip for investment advice. None of them would have wanted to see him married to one of their daughters. Will is certain that Noah Bassett took his own life due to being financially ruined, and he’s just as certain that Philip did not throw himself out a fourth floor window, based on forensic evidence. Will in convinced that one of Philip’s clients — Noah Bassett, for instance — may have killed him and made it look like suicide.
Nell is on friendly terms with Miriam Bassett and she agrees to help Will question the Bassett sisters. Unexpected help with the investigation comes in the form of Harry Hewitt, who idolized Philip Munro and who is deeply affected by his death. Harry is willing to cooperate with Will, wanting to see Philip’s murderer brought to justice.
On the personal side of things, Nell and Will are maintaining their sham engagement, which continues to be a double edge sword for Will. It allows him to see Nell and get to know his daughter, but it’s doing nothing for his resolve to maintain a respectable relationship with Nell. He informs Nell that he will be heading to Shanghai at the end of the school term — news that distresses Nell and prompts Will to tell her he can be persuaded to stay with a single kiss. Bad idea, Will. He realizes that he’s being selfish and tells her to forget about the request (as if she could!). True to his word, Will leaves Boston. The scene at the rail station is tender and bittersweet. As always, Nell and Will’s predicament tugs at my heart.
Started: 3 June 2008
Finished: 7 June 2008
LOVED IT !!
Rating:
Death on Beacon Hill
Author: P. B. Ryan
Copyright: 2005 (Berkley)
Series: 3rd in the Gilded Age Mystery series
Sensuality: N/A
Violence: murder (not seen); some punching
Where & When: Boston, June 1869
Who: Nell Sweeney, governess, and Dr. William Hewitt
Summary: Once again, Nell Sweeney is asked to look into a case, this time because the official report pinned the fatal shooting of retired actress Virginia Kimball on her maid, Fiona. According to the report, Fiona was caught by her employer as she was attempting to steal Mrs. Kimball’s jewels. But both women received fatal gunshot wounds. Even if Boston’s detectives are ill-trained in homicide investigations — as Nell’s friend Colin Cook tells her — there is evidence that points to a third person’s involvement. And the list of suspects is long.
Comments: I decided to start the year off with my favorite mystery series. The mystery itself — what really happened that afternoon at Mrs. Kimball’s and who killed her and her maid — kept me guessing. Nearly everyone Nell and Will speaks to had a motive to kill Virginia.
As for Will and Nell’s relationship, it’s changing. Will spends more and more time with Nell and Gracie. Still, neither has said it aloud, but it clear that are in love with each other — and know it. There’s a passage that pretty much sums up the situation:
There were boundaries to their friendship, like a wall of frosted glass, very real but also very fragile, so fragile that neither of them dare speak of what lay on the other side. By looking at her that way, Will was, whether he realized it or not, pressing his face dangerously close to the glass.
The book can be read without having read the first two, but I wouldn’t recommend it because you’d be missing the development of the main characters. Highly recommend the series.
Favorite Quotes:
“Rumors are starting about us.”
“Excellent. Life would be so dull without rumors.”
– Nell, Will
“Come, now, you must have read at least one of those vapid governess novels. Doesn’t the heroine always end up married off to one of her employer’s sons?”
– Will
Started: 1 January 2008
Finished: 4 January 2008
LOVED IT !!
Rating:
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The lowborn Fallons haven’t come to the Hewitt household for a handout, they’ve come for help — the kind of help only Nell Sweeney can give. Their wayward daughter, Bridget, is missing and they don’t know whether she’s gone off with her brute of a boyfriend or if she’s met with a bad end.
2nd in the Gilded Age Mystery series
Author: P. B. Ryan
ISBN: 0-425-19715-8 (Berkley)
Finished: 10 July 2007
Who: Nell Sweeney, governess and Dr. William Hewitt
When: September 1868 – five months after first book
Once again, Viola Hewitt calls on Nell to help solve a mystery. Though neither knows it at the time, one of the prime suspects in the mystery is Viola’s third son, Harry. An altercation between Harry and herself, earlier in the year, has led Nell to believe that Harry is capable of anything. Will, the other hand, isn’t so sure — even after he hears what happened between Nell and his brother.
Back in Boston, supposedly for a high-stakes poker game, Will joins the investigation. A big contrast from the first book, Will is no longer indulging in opium to ward of the pain in his leg, though he still takes morphine. This results in a more lucid, coherent sleuthing partner. Nell and Will are an excellent team, scouring crime scenes, performing autopsies, and debating the plausibility of Harry being the culprit.
Though this is primarily a mystery series, the relationship between Nell and Will is very prominent. Will has given up most of his self-destructive habits and is very much in love with Nell, though it is never said outright. His actions are more telling. Nell’s belief in him is his lifeline. Regardless of their deep trust and rapport, Nell has secrets. Secrets that could see her fired from her job as Gracie Hewitt’s governess, something that would destroy her for she loves Gracie as if she was Nell’s own child. Her fear of what would happen if anyone knew the truth has kept her from telling Will. It’s only a matter of time before he does learn it, and he is devastated. He eventually comes to understand and appreciate Nell’s reasons, but not before he does something stupid and nearly loses her to a murdering loon.
I love this series. After finishing the book, I had to go back and re-read scenes and I even pulled out the first book to re-read much of Nell and Will’s many conversations again. It’s a wonderful series and I’ll be sad to see it end. The author announced that the 6th book will be the last
Favorite Quotes:
“Will! Are you all right?”
“Yes, splendid. I quite like being humiliated in front of beautiful women. Improves the character.”
— Nell and Will, who took a tumble into a stream
LOVED IT !!
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