The Deadly Hours

August 3, 2020
A gold watch rumored to be cursed links the plots of the four novellas in this superior anthology. Kearsley starts things off with “Weapon of Choice,” set in 1733 Italy, where Scots travelers Hugh and Mary McPherson get drawn into an effort to foil the assassination of the Duke of Ormonde, who’s been targeted by a loyalist working “for the English Crown.” Meanwhile, the two meet a pirate who possesses a timepiece, La Sirene, made from gold said to have been cursed after it was plundered from a cathedral. A surprising death follows. The watch reappears in 1831 Edinburgh, where Huber’s series sleuth, Lady Darby, is consulted by the head of the city’s largest criminal gang, who believes that it was responsible for a fatal illness that decimated his family. Trent’s entry, “A Pocketful of Death,” set in Edinburgh four decades later, is the standout, as La Sirene stopped working just before three deaths, an impossibility that proves to have a logical explanation. Harris’s contribution, “Siren’s Call,” set in 1944–1945 England, adds the least to the saga. This is a solid introduction to authors who deserve a wider readership.

September 1, 2020
Four historical-fiction authors tell the story of a mysterious, cursed gold watch in an anthology that spans multiple centuries and continents. From eighteenth-century Italy to WWII England, a watch called La Sir�ne brings death and misfortune wherever it appears. In Kearsley's novella, set in 1733, the protagonists are faced with the challenge of solving a murder and preventing the assassination of a Jacobite duke. Jumping forward a century, Anna Lee Huber tells the story of the poisoning of a crime lord in the middle of a mysterious epidemic in Edinburgh. Christine Trent's tale follows a string of murders in Victorian London, which the watch eerily seems to predict, and the book concludes with C. S. Harris' wartime story of espionage and murder on the coast of Kent. Harris' novella is the best of the four?and the only one not to feature familiar characters from the authors' previous series?but the collection as a whole is strong, cleverly linked by the mystery of the cursed watch, and readers will be pleased by the ultimate, satisfying resolution.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)