A twist of murder

Redmond's meandering fifth Dickens of a Crime mystery (after 2021's The Pickwick Murders) opens in 1836, as 23-year-old Charles Dickens arrives at Harrow on the Hill at the urgent request of his friend William Aga. William's father owns the Aga Academy for boys, where Charles and William support three charity students who have disappeared. William's 12-year-old cousin, Agnes, is also missing, and when the housekeeper discovers the girl's body in the school's icehouse, Charles winds up investigating a murder, as well as hunting for the missing boys. Impish Agnes had been waving around a "treasure map" before she died. Did someone murder Agnes for the map? Back in London, Charles's fiancée, Kate Hogarth, and William's pregnant wife, Julie, decide to go to Harrow to help their men unravel the mystery. But a crisis arises at the school that Charles must deal with, leaving the women to conduct an investigation that may lead not to a treasure but to a murderer. Convincing historical details and appealing characters make up only in part for a plot that wanders all over the place and never seems to lead anywhere. Redmond has done better. Agent: Laurie McLean, Foreword Literary. (Nov.)

A famous British author deals with a string of unfortunate incidents at a struggling boarding school. Still waiting for his new rooms to be completed before he marries his fiancee, Kate Hogarth, Charles Dickens is called away to Harrow on the Hill to investigate the disappearance of three students, not from the illustrious school that takes its name from its location, but from a more modest establishment run by Eustace Aga, the father of Charles' colleague William Aga. Charles feels responsible for the lads, since he's paying their way as charity students at the school after having rescued them from the dangerous life they led under Blackfriars Bridge in A Tale of Two Murders (2018). The leading theory about the boys' vanishing--other than rebellion against the strict new rules and meager new rations instituted by Eustace's parsimonious new business partner, Fagin Sikes--is that they joined the traveling circus that recently visited town. But the concurrent disappearance of William's niece Agnes, who worked as a maid at the school, sheds doubt on this explanation, since Agnes, who's expressed no interest in circus life, has been showing off a treasure map that she claims will win her fortune right in Harrow. More calamities follow. Charles and William are eventually joined by Kate; William's pregnant wife, Julie; and Julie's maid, Lucy, all of whom struggle mightily to put things right against this cavalcade of misfortune. The Victorian setting holds a plot out of Elizabethan tragedy. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.