Martin Edwards, The Arsenic Labyrinth

The Arsenic Labyrinth

Martin Edwards

Poisoned Pen, January 2006, $22.95, 302 pp.

ISBN 1590583280

After ten years away from the Lake District in England, Guy returns and stays at a cheap bed and breakfast because his money ran out. Guy is a grifter, a gigolo and a scammer, but for some unknown reason when he sees reporter Tony Di Venuto's article about Emma Bostwick being missing for ten years, he decides to help the reporter out. He tells him the approximate location where the body is. DCI Hannah Scarlett takes the call very seriously, and has her team search the mine shafts in the arsenic labyrinth.

It doesn't take them long to find the body, but they are shocked to find a second corpse there, a victim of a murder fifty years ago. There are many questions surrounding the disappearance of Emma, including where she got the money to buy a cottage and a car when she wasn't working. Daniel Kind, the son of Hannah's mentor, helps her investigate the death of the victim who was killed fifty years ago by doing some historical research, and he discovers who killed the victim and why. As for Emma, good old fashioned police work leads to the modern day killer.

Martin Edwards has written a mystery that has so many superlative twists that readers are constantly in a state of suspense wondering what will happen next. From almost the very beginning the audience knows that Guy was instrumental in Emma's death, but they don't know how or why he feels bad about it after all this time of staying silent. Surprisingly, readers will feel for Guy, pitying him for not traveling a different road. This tale is multi-layered and a one sitting reading experience.