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by Marjorie Eccles
What could make a successful, happily married man take a gun and shoot himself? What made a young artist on the brink of fame throw himself to his death?
These are the questions facing Chief Inspector Lamb and his assistant, Detective Sergeant Cogan. Neither victim left a note behind to explain what drove him to take his own life, and it appears that nothing untoward had occurred in the weeks preceding their deaths. Having briefly met both victims, Lamb struggles to connect the impression he gained of the men with their final actions, and his close attention pays off when a postmortem reveals some surprising results.
With one case now looking like a suspicious death, Lamb looks for links between the two men. All paths seem to lead to the enigmatic figure of Mrs. Isobel Amberley and a mysterious event that took place one winter’s night in Vienna.
Beautifully written and highly evocative of the bustling streets of London and Vienna in the early twentieth century, Last Nocturne is an intriguingly complex mystery of passion and the devastating repercussions of a single action.
"Vienna in all its fin de siecle glory will make readers long for the possibility of time travel in this mystery-cum-pastry from veteran Eccles." - Kirkus Reviews
"Starred Review. Introduce a cast of intriguing characters who might have stepped out of a Josephine Tey novel, add a complex, twisty plot in the best tradition of classic British mystery, throw in psychological suspense worthy of Barbara Vine, and you know that you have been reading a master." - Library Journal
"Solid prose compensates only in part for flashbacks that dilute the suspense." - Publishers Weekly
This information about Last Nocturne was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Marjorie Eccles was born in Yorkshire and spent much of her childhood there and on the Northumbrian coast. The author of over twenty books and short stories, she is the recipient of the Agatha Christie Short Story Styles Award. Her books featuring police detective Gil Mayo have been adapted for the BBC. Marjorie lives in Hertfordshire.
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