The Salisbury Manuscripts

by Philip Gooden

Book Overview

'Gooden may be the best history-mystery writer going.' Booklist1873. A treasure-hunter is stabbed to death while searching a burial chamber on the outskirts of the city of Salisbury. At the same time... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1569475121
• ISBN13: 9781569475126
• Release Date: July 2008
• Publisher: Soho Constable
• Length: 310 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.9" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

"Thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth"

Written with a Victorian sensibility, this compelling murder mystery uses the English town of Salisbury as a picaresque backdrop in tale of brotherly enmity where a mysterious manuscript threatens to shatter the reputation of a well-respected family if its elusive contents are ever made public. Thomas Ansell, lawyer for the London offices of Scott, Lye & Mackenzie is given the delicate task of traveling to Salisbury to secure the scandalous manuscript of George Slater. Even though George had died many years ago, Felix Slater, George's devoutly religious son, who looks upon himself as the inheritor of tradition and a repository of all that's best in the Slater family, is of the opinion that his father's controversial writings should never see the light of day. Alex's instructions to the Firm are that it should be placed safely in their vaults and sealed up until Walter Slater, Felix's delicate nephew, can decide whether to read his grandfather's words, or whether to dispose of them unread. Whatever Felix's feelings about his father - unease, embarrassment, even anger or disgust - he just can't bring himself to destroy what George Slater had committed to paper. As all of these issues cloud the mind of the poor Thomas Ansell, he eventually arrives in Salisbury to embark on an enterprise that he is sure has a presentiment of danger, even as the parting words of his dear sweetheart Helen tumble over and over in his mind: "You must take care of yourself my dear." But it is a vision on the fog-shrouded Salisbury train platform and a silhouette at the platform's edge, a black figure creeping upon it and then another figure falling onto the tracks that most gives Thomas a feeling of doom. And then there's the appearance of a mysterious woman who bangs into him, assessing him by the faint light of the inn he is staying in. With a flamboyant appearance and maybe also a touch of foreignness about her, the beautiful woman raises a gloved hand towards a bunch of flowers attached to her coat collar, and almost inappropriately propositions him. But Thomas still isn't quite prepared for what follows when he's caught between the priggish and particular Alex , lord and master of Venn House and his estranged brother, the irresponsible and self-indulgent Percy who is reportedly paying for a lifetime of indulgence while Northwood House, the Slater ancestral home, crumbles around his ears. Soon a portrait develops of two brothers: the one lean and austere, the other slack and self-indulgent. Felix's religious vocation passion for old artifacts and reverence for the Canon is contrasted with Percy's devotion to gambling and the turf. Neither brother is a fraudster but Thomas soon sees they are not quite how they'd been painted by others. It is this animosity between both Alex and Percy that leads Thomas on an complicated investigation involving the discovery of a body at Venn House, a flint spear-head plunged into the nape of the neck, and the mysterious disa

interesting Victorian amateur sleuth

In 1873, London attorney Thomas Ansell travels to Salisbury to pick up Canon Felix Slater's manuscript of his father's explicit memoir. George Slater was a compatriot of the great romance authors like Lord Byron, but his reputation was earned for his hedonistic ways especially womanizing. After Thomas and Slater meet, someone murders the latter in his study; the murder weapon is a flint spearhead. The local police find Ansell near the corpse with his hands wet with blood. He knows he is prime suspect though the motive the cops assign to him is greed re stealing the manuscript. Not trusting the police to look elsewhere and needing to clear his name of scandal let alone murder suspicion, Ansell investigates. This interesting Victorian amateur sleuth hooks the audience with an engaging whodunit and an unusual writing style that initially stuns the reader, but once adjusted seems apropos as it adds to the sense of time and place. Ansell is a fascinating protagonist who knows he is in over his head when he applies his legal skills to a murder mystery, but feels he has no choice. Although the ending seems too obvious, THE SALISBURY MANUSCRIPT is a fun late nineteenth century English mystery. Harriet Klausner