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Book Review of Murder on Waverly Place (Gaslight, Bk 11)

Murder on Waverly Place (Gaslight, Bk 11)
demiducky25 avatar reviewed on + 161 more book reviews


This is the 11th book in Victoria Thompson's Gaslight Mysteries series and the last one out so far (hopefully another is in the works soon)! Midwife Sarah Brandt agrees to attend a seance with her mother, Mrs. Decker, in order to help Mrs. Decker overcome the guilt she feels over Sarah's sister's death years ago. Mrs. Decker hopes that the seance will allow her to talk to Maggie's spirit and ask for forgiveness. After not having luck at the first sitting, Sarah thought that her mother was done attending seance. A few weeks pass and Sarah is called upon by a police officer to come pick up her mother because a person was murdered at a seance she was attending.

Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy didn't think he'd get Sarah involved in investigating another murder. That is, until he's called to a scene by a woman named Sarah Brandt, though it was actually Mrs. Decker trying to keep her famous name out of the papers (no one would bother with her midwife daughter, but a wealthy socialite would give the papers a field-day). Together, Mrs. Decker, Sarah, and Malloy need to find out who killed the woman at the seance and how it was possible since everyone in the pitch-black room had been holding wrists in a circle and someone would have noticed a person moving. Will they solve the mystery in time before someone else dies? Will the blame fall to a poor Italian immigrant in order to protect the wealthy socialites that were in attendance at the seance? Who could have murdered someone in front of all of those people? You'll only find out if you read it!

This was a very entertaining read, but I must say that yet again I am disappointed in the Sarah-Malloy dynamic. The do spend a lot of time separately contemplating their feelings for each other (YAY), but they have considerably less interaction in this book than in many of the others (boo). Hopefully the next book in the series will move beyond the relationship in their heads and move towards the relationship in their hearts!