“Murder at the Spirit Lounge” is the second outing for Jess Kidd’s amateur sleuth and ex-Carmelite nun Nora Breen. Once again set in 1950s England, this new novel picks up not long after the events of last year’s “Murder at Gulls Nest,” in which Breen first arrived in the seaside town of Gore-on-Sea (a great, if prophetic, name) and found herself entangled in her boarding house’s grisly murder mystery.
Things haven’t changed much since we last left our heroine. Breen still lodges at Gulls Nest under the vague stewardship of landlady Helena Wells, whose 8-year-old daughter Dinah communicates mostly through mime and mischief rather than words.
Housekeeper Irene Rawlings continues to serve meals that test the outer limits of edibility. Fellow boarder Bill Carter remains fixed in place, less by the accommodation itself than by his hopeless devotion to Mrs Wells.
Breen’s most charged relationship, though, is with Detective Inspector Hilary Rideout, a shabby, handsome war veteran with old wounds he keeps mostly to himself. As a former nun who has long since set aside any notion of romantic entanglement, Breen treats their rapport with a wary humor. The mutual respect running between them carries an undercurrent of flirtation that neither seems to know what to make of.
Trying Chimes
The novel opens as Rideout shows up at Gulls Nest to request Breen’s presence at a reported theft investigation. She’s not so much needed for her observational skills, but rather as Rideout’s chaperone. The supposed theft happened at the home of Doreen Chimes, Gore-on-Sea’s newly arrived celebrity medium.Chimes, dressed in a low-cut tea gown, receives them reclined among a menagerie of pampered cats, with little doubt about her real reason for requesting Rideout’s presence. “She moves sedately, glidingly, like an ocean liner.” Chimes flirts aggressively with Rideout and dismisses Breen with barely concealed condescension.
Breen, unconvinced by Chimes’s supernatural claims, pegs her as a shallow operator deftly working a credulous public. What confuses Breen is how readily everyone around her buys into Chimes’s act.
Oddballs and Crystal Balls
The sitters that night are a mismatched assortment. Lady Braybrooke is a brittle aristocrat who has spent decades honing her stiff upper lip and sharp tongue, which she wields with harsh precision. She’s accompanied by her devoted, work-worn daughter Harriet, who seems to have a much gentler heart than her mother.Col. William Fulford has an arrogant, gruff military bearing and happens to be staying at Gull’s Nest. His arrival in Gore-on-Sea turns out to be specifically for this séance, something to do with his late wife.
The younger Freddie Grace is brash, expensively dressed, and lacks much in the way of charm. He’s supposedly a self-made man. A seventh attendee, a glamorous actress named Sybil Sparkes, wasn’t invited, but came as Freddie’s date. Though most of them say they don’t know each other, each has been summoned by Chimes for reasons that only become clear later.
Unfortunately, the night’s performance turns fatal. Chimes dies at the table, evidently without warning. One sitter insists she was frightened to death by something she glimpsed in her crystal ball.
What follows is a chain (a rattling chain, perhaps) of dangers befalling the other attendees. One by one, they come face to face with deadly peril. It soon becomes clear that everyone who sat at the séance table, Rideout included, is now in the killer’s sights.
Can Breen thwart the killer’s plans in time? It could be an impossible task, considering the killer might be a ghost.
Cozy Mystery and More
Kidd has a true gift for setting a vivid scene with remarkably few words while still landing a good joke or tense thrill. Her cheeky, charming style shows in the opening pages. Breen, freshly battered by a bracing morning walk on the beach, is described as having “a face like a slapped arse.”This is a good example of what makes the Breen novels so satisfying. They don’t take themselves too seriously. Instead, they encourage a sense of playfulness that’s an integral part of Breen herself.
Having left the sisterhood, Breen is embracing her life’s second act, exploring the world with a revived sense of curiosity and a desire to be useful. It’s infectious.
Though this sportiveness places Breen comfortably in the cozy mystery category, the books also have a depth of character, especially the villains. This depth brings something considerably darker for the more serious mystery fan.
When you add to the mix Kidd’s considerable ability to create genuine literary craft, you have a trifecta of enjoyment.
Bring on the third installment.
