Silent in the Grave by Deanna Raybourn

Genre: Mystery, historical bent
Publisher, Year: Mira, 2007
Other Works: Silent in the Sanctuary
Flags: Adult themes, tenuous references
Rating: B, or Decent
Challenges: Countdown, Library
Premise: Lady Julia Grey employs the mysterious Brisbane to find her husband's murderer.

It wasn’t love at first sight with this book, for me. I was very intrigued by the opening chapters, and I was looking forward to a delicious mystery. Although I think Raybourn is a skilled writer, I’m not totally sure mystery is the right genre for her.

The novel opens with the death, in wonderful mystery fashion, of Lady Julia Grey’s husband Edward. A man of sickly constitution, no one is surprised that he’s met an early end—except for one man, Nicholas Brisbane, who claims to have been hired by Edward to investigate chilling death threats. Lady Grey finally comes to put stock in Brisbane’s story when she finds her own piece of evidence to confirm suspicions. And then, the race is on to find the killer! +/-

First of all, I loved her descriptions! Raybourn knows how to paint a picture with words. I could literally see the dresses and hats as she described them in my mind’s eye, which I think she quite a feat--taking into account that it’s hard to do anyway, but the complicated fashion of the period only made it that much more of a challenge. Julia has a wonderfully strange family who surround her. The bickering, the snobbery, the bizarre characters--I really thought it was a nice backdrop. I liked Brisbane, or maybe I wanted to like him--there was something wonderfully Healthcliff-esque about him. But at the same time, he was so brusque that those few tender moments didn’t seem to fit his character.

There was no lack of twists in this story, but I’m sorry to say that in this case I didn’t find it to be a good thing. I felt like these “shocking” moments started to become contrived and predictable . . . to the rolling of the eyes. But, there were redeeming qualities of that as well. Raybourn calls into question our assumptions about certain characters with these revelations. There’s nothing quite so unsettling as finding out that someone you thought you knew well is actually someone else altogether. I haven’t had this experience much, but enough to understand those feelings of betrayal and disloyalty, not to mention that it makes you question a lot of things about yourself and your life as well. We, as the readers, are forced to reconcile what we know of conflicting reports, and then try to figure out true identities. It gave a nice dimension to the story.

This book was slow moving for me. It was not hard at all for me to put this book down, not even when on the verge of another of Julia’s scandalous discoveries. This book did not have the heart-pounding twists that I’m used to and that I also adore. There were things I didn’t like about the book, but it wasn’t all bad. Anyone who enjoys Victorian-period lit I think would quite enjoy this book. For me, it just wasn’t a homerun.

BC About the Author: Deanna Raybourn

A sixth-generation native Texan, Deanna Raybourn graduated from the University of Texas at San Antonio with a double major in English and history and an emphasis on Shakespearean studies. She taught high school English for three years in San Antonio before leaving education to pursue a career as a novelist.

During summer vacation at the age of twenty-three, she wrote her first novel. Fourteen years and many, many rejections after her first novel, she signed two three-book deals with MIRA Books.

Her first book appeared in January 2007, Silent in the Grave. The series continues with the second book, Silent in the Sanctuary (January 2008), a classic English country house murder mystery with a few twists and turns for Brisbane and Lady Julia along the way, and continues with Silent on the Moor (March 2009), set in a grim manor house on the Yorkshire moors. +/-

Raybourn will have two more releases this year. The first in March with The Dead Travel Fast, a mid-Victorian Gothic thriller that chronicles the adventures of novelist Theodora Lestrange as she leaves the safety and security of her Edinburgh home for the dark woods and haunted castles of Transylvania. Deanna returns to Lady Julia and her companions with Dark Road to Darjeeling (release planned for October).

Deanna plots her books from her home in Virginia. After one too many hot Texas summers, Deanna and her husband packed up their daughter and moved to the mid-Atlantic state, where they enjoy the fall leaves but deeply miss good Tex-Mex cooking.

You can read more about her and her books on her website: deannaraybourn.com

Wishlist Wednesday

This week's wishlist comes from Barnes and Noble's Blogging Booksellers page that I recently discovered. They've posted video from several different stores around the country of their employees and their recommendations. Kind of fun. =) Two books piqued my interest:

The Invention of Hugo Cabret
by Brian Selznick

Orphan, clock keeper, and thief, twelve-year-old Hugo lives in the walls of a busy Paris train station, where his survival depends on secrets and anonymity. But when his world suddenly interlocks with an eccentric girl and the owner of a small toy booth in the train station, Hugo’s undercover life, and his most precious secret, are put in jeopardy. A cryptic drawing, a treasured notebook, a stolen key, a mechanical man, and a hidden message all come together...in The Invention of Hugo Cabret.

+/-

This 526-page book is told in both words and pictures. The Invention of Hugo Cabret is not exactly a novel, and it’s not quite a picture book, and it’s not really a graphic novel, or a flip book, or a movie, but a combination of all these things. Each picture (there are nearly three hundred pages of pictures!) takes up an entire double page spread, and the story moves forward because you turn the pages to see the next moment unfold in front of you.

Check out the website here.


Silent in the Grave
by Deanna Raybourn

"Let the wicked be ashamed, and let them be silent in the grave." These ominous words, slashed from the pages of a book of Psalms, are the last threat that the darling of London society, Sir Edward Grey, receives from his killer. Before he can show them to Nicholas Brisbane, the private inquiry agent he has retained for his protection, Sir Edward collapses and dies at his London home, in the presence of his wife, Julia, and a roomful of dinner guests.

Prepared to accept that Edward's death was due to a longstanding physical infirmity, Julia is outraged when Brisbane visits and suggests that Sir Edward has been murdered. It is a reaction she comes to regret when she discovers the damning paper for herself, and realizes the truth.

Determined to bring her husband's murderer to justice, Julia engages the enigmatic Brisbane to help her investigate Edward's demise. Dismissing his warnings that the investigation will be difficult, if not impossible, Julia presses forward, following a trail of clues that lead her to even more unpleasant truths, and ever closer to a killer who waits expectantly for her arrival.

Visit the website here.