Death brings a shadow

Investigative team Prudence MacKenzie and former Pinkerton agent Geoffrey Hunter travel to fictional Bradford Island, Georgia, to attend Eleanor Dickson's wedding. Eleanor, a Yankee whose father now owns the island, is to marry Teddy Bennett, the son of the island's former owner who fell on hard times after the Civil War and was forced to sell to Dickson. Soon after they arrive, Eleanor disappears and is found drowned in the nearby swamp. The local coroner rules the death accidental, but Prudence and Geoffrey disagree and launch their own investigation. Secrets abound, but the Bennetts and the plantation's former slaves refuse to share what they know, even after others die. The oppressive island setting, a touch of voodoo, and the life and times of the South in the late 1800s are skillfully woven into the story as the strong-willed Prudence interacts with a way of life that is entirely foreign and repugnant to her.--Sue O'Brien Copyright 2019 Booklist

Simpson's strong fourth Gilded Age mystery (after 2018's Let the Dead Keep Their Secrets) brings New Yorker Prudence MacKenzie and former Pinkerton detective Geoffrey Hunter to Georgia's Bradford Island for the wedding of a close friend of Prudence, heiress Eleanor Dickson. Soon after their arrival, Eleanor is found drowned. When Geoffrey notices bruising on the body that suggests foul play, the two determine to solve the crime. Prudence discovers that juju is still practiced on Bradford and that a former slave and conjure woman called Aunt Jessa knows more than she is telling. When Aunt Jessa is murdered, the sleuths feel sure that the island's secrets hold the key to Eleanor's death. The tension rises as Prudence's Yankee perspective clashes with Geoffrey's greater sympathy for the South, jeopardizing their investigative partnership and their personal rapport. Though the elaborate backstory can be confusing, Simpson neatly exploits the gothic possibilities of her isolated setting and delivers a nuanced look at an America struggling to adjust to transformative change. This entry should win the series new fans. Agent: Jessica Faust, BookEnds Literary. (Dec.)

A 19th-century fairy-tale wedding turns into a funeral on a remote Georgia island.For Eleanor Dickson and Teddy Bennett, their upcoming nuptials on Bradford Island are all about true love. But Prudence MacKenzie, Eleanor's best friend, knows that it's also a coldhearted business deal between the bride's and groom's fathers. Dickson has bought the island from the impoverished Bennett as a summer retreat but allowed him to keep his ancestral home, once the center of a thriving plantation. Because the Civil War left Bennett and his family little but their gracious old house, their "people" as servants, and their social status, Bennett's older son and heir has become engaged to the daughter of a Yankee businessman. Shortly after they arrive at the island for the wedding, Eleanor confesses to Prudence that she feels eyes watching her from the moss-hung live oaks, pine forests, and swampland. When Eleanor goes missing, Prudence, every inch the modern woman, insists on joining the hunt for her along with Geoffrey Hunter, her partner in Hunter and MacKenzie, Investigative Law. Their professional services become sadly relevant when Teddy's younger brother discovers Eleanor's body drowned in the swamp. In laying out Eleanor in preparation for burial in her silk and Valenciennes lace wedding gown, Prudence finds bruises and a dislocated shoulder indicating that someone held Eleanor underwater. Over her body, Prudence and Geoffrey, an ex-Pinkerton agent and a son of the South himself, vow to find her killer. The warnings of Aunt Jessa, a conjure woman who was once Teddy's mammy, as well as an attempt on Prudence's own life and the startling appearance of a young servant named Minda lead Prudence into a family history as tangled as the swamp that claimed Eleanor's life in Simpson's fourth Gilded Age mystery (Let the Dead Keep Their Secrets, 2018, etc.).Packed with suspense, romance, voodoo, class and racial issues, and intimations of the war that didn't end at Appomattox. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.