Dead for a Spell
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Bram Stoker, business manager for London’s Lyceum Theatre, is never surprised to find the supernatural waiting in the wings—especially when a chilling murder appears to have origins in the occult…
March 1881. The Lyceum is abuzz with the news that American actor Edwin Booth is going to be sharing the stage with their own Shakespearean star, Henry Irving. But stage manager Harry Rivers has other matters preoccupying him. One of the regular actresses has disappeared, and after a disturbing tarot card reading, Harry’s boss, Bram Stoker, is convinced that something wicked is coming their way.
When the poor girl’s body is found, Stoker’s suspicions prove to be founded—the murder scene is riddled with strange clues that Stoker recognizes as the trappings of an occult ritual. Someone is conjuring up a pernicious plot against cast and crew of the Lyceum, and if Harry doesn’t track down the slaying sorcerer quickly, it could spell disaster for those he holds dearest…
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The execution fails to match the originality of the premise of Buckland's second whodunit featuring Bram Stoker (after Cursed in the Act). In March 1881, the disappearance of Nell Burton, an extra in a production of Hamlet at London's Lyceum Theatre, alarms Stoker, the Lyceum's manager. After an unsettling tarot card reading, Stoker goes to Scotland Yard, accompanied by his stage manager, Harry Rivers, to ask the police for help in locating Nell. Later, she's found floating in the Thames with her throat slit. The nature of the wound and markings at the site where she was killed, a warehouse overlooking the river, lead the future author of Dracula to believe that she may have been the victim of a ritual sacrifice and that other deaths will follow. Underdeveloped lead characters, clich d plot elements, and inconsistency of tone mar this historical.
