Hidden Pasts

5 stars

I read the Kindle edition.

It is the 1860’s in Scotland.

Sholto and Brogar Finn McKay are off on another investigation in the mines of Scotland. They are headed for Balcary House. Their assistants Gilligan and Hugh are accompanying them.

When they arrive the night before going to Hestan Island, the innkeeper, the thoroughly unlikeable Skinner Tweedy, offends them. The next morning they set out only to have a man running toward them. He says that there is someone trapped in one of the old mines. But there were only supposed to be two men on the island. They are Gabriel Merryweather and Kerr Perdue. Hurrying over the “Rack” to the island, Brogar “suits” up and prepares to go into the mine to rescue the man. The man has bad bruises and a broken leg, but makes it back across the water. His name is Charlie Stirling.

Brogar senses a mystery in the making when one of the two inhabitants of the island invites him to supper and begins a tale of how they got there and some sort of pact he and his fellow islander made with the owner. He then clams up. Brogar and the other islander go to the cave to rescue the injured man’s sister. For if the injured man was who they thought it was, his sister Frith is not far away. After a dangerous and harrowing rescue, they bring her back to meet with her brother. The young peoples’ father, Archie Stirling was also a part of this mysterious pact. Archie died in a mine accident.

Meanwhile Sholto learns the tale of Bill Tuley who is the doctor on the main island and the sinking of their ship. This is why he is so embittered – he told the crew to save the passengers, but they didn’t, they just rowed away and left three hundred and fifty people to die. His long suffering wife Hazel has taken over his job. The presence of Hugh and Gilligan seems to cheer the old doctor up and he joins in the adventure. Hazel is delighted to see this change in her man.

Merryweather decides to tell all about the pact. He receives a visitor. Murder occurs. Now solving the mystery becomes more urgent.

Talking to townspeople, our intrepid investigators learn about a lost library, a mysterious identity and what really happened in the Crimea to Gabriel, Archie, Kerr and the fourth man – a Russian named Kheranovich.

This novel is extremely well written and plotted as are all of Clio Gray’s books. The tension in the story begins slowly, but picks up apace. It becomes a real mystery as time passes. The reader is drawn in slowly, but cannot put the book down before long. The is sufficient background information given on the characters so as to flesh them out, even the minor ones, but not so much as to intrude on the story. This is not only a mystery, but a story about loss, regrets, the effect our pasts still have on us years later and the ability of the human spirit to overcome. I truly enjoyed this novel and thought it was the best of the series so far. I anxiously await the publication of the next novel in the Brogar/Sholto adventures.

I want to thank NetGalley and Urbane Publications for forwarding to me a copy of this most remarkable book to read and enjoy.