Lured to an island by the promise of rare butterflies, lepidopterist Veronica Speedwell finds herself delving into another mystery. The charismatic Lord Templeton-Vane is a friend of Malcolm Romilly, whose wife disappeared shortly after they said their wedding vows. After his loss, and the subsequent gossip, he retreated into his secluded world, which includes a castle with lots of delightful hiding places. As part of the invite, Lord Templeton-Vane (Tiberius) asks Veronica to pretend to be his fiancee, for propriety’s sake. Nothing to do with annoying his brother, Stoker, Veronica’s colleague (and will-they-won’t-they). Stoker is not invited but shows up anyway. Together they delve into what happened to Rosamund Romilly, putting them close to a killer and danger.
I feel like I’ve made that sound a bit more exciting than it is, but I’m getting ahead of myself. For disclosure, this is the first of the Veronica Speedwell mysteries I’ve read, and coming into number four may not be giving it its best shot. Though the stories standalone, there’s a lot of backstory, especially between Veronica and Stoker, that I have missed. I’m not that sorry though, if this one is anything to go by. She thinks a lot about Stoker, and his face, and if she ought to kiss him. It gets a bit old, especially when there’s a possible murder going on and she won’t even ask helpful questions until about three quarters of the way through. Is she good at this? Is she known for solving mysteries? Because it seems she mostly shows up, talks about butterflies, then almost gets killed by the murderer (who gives themselves away by doing so! Talk about being given a hand) while brooding about her relationship and flirting with her beloved’s brother. I didn’t like her enough for all these shenanigans.
Overall I found this slow. There’s a whole thing at the beginning where she goes off for six months to Madeira, which comes back at the end but it seems unnecessary (maybe it makes more sense if you’ve read the others?) . The mystery isn’t all that exciting, partly because no one seems all that interested in solving it til the last minute. And there seemed to be a lot of sympathy for the murderer, and understanding I’m not sure I agreed with. (Similarly, Tiberius confesses to the ill treatment of his wife, which, spoiler alert, led to her dying in childbirth, and Veronica is all ‘oh how awful for you’. He did that! Just because he’s crying about it doesn’t mean he’s a good dude!) I’m not saying I won’t pick up the others in the series, but I’m in no rush.
