Jane Wunderly #5
Secrets of a Scottish Isle is the fifth full-length book in Erica Ruth Neubauer’s Jane Wunderly series, which also includes a delightful e-novella, Murder Under the Mistletoe. Set in the 1920s, the series features the American war widow Jane, who travels the world after the death of her abusive husband has left her a free woman. Each book has a different setting. So far, Jane’s adventures have taken her to Egypt, an English country house, an Atlantic crossing on the sister ship of the Titanic, Istanbul, the north of England (in the e-novella), and, in this novel, Iona, a remote island off the west coast of Scotland.
While she was in Egypt, Jane met the enigmatic Englishman Redvers, who carries out secret missions for the British government. She and Redvers felt an immediate attraction for each other, but Jane was reluctant to fall in love again after the disaster of her first marriage. Slowly she has come to realize that Redvers is completely unlike her first husband, and she has acknowledged her feelings. By this time, they are engaged. Until now, though, Jane has hesitated about setting a wedding date, because she doesn’t want to rush into marriage. The developing relationship between Jane and Redvers is one of the strengths of the series, and Neubauer handles it very well. The relationship develops at just the right pace–not too quickly or too slowly.
This book takes place in March 1927, when Jane is sent to Iona to go undercover as a member of a secret society called the Order of the Golden Dawn. The organization Redvers works for is thinking of recruiting the group’s leader, Robert Nightingale, as an agent, but they have doubts about him. Redvers cannot be part of the mission, because Nightingale knows who he is, so he asks Jane to play the role of a new member of the occult group. The novel begins with the ritual of her initiation into the society. Jane does not believe in the supernatural and is skeptical of the Golden Dawn and their rites and ceremonies, but she must maintain her role so she can pass information on the group’s leader to Redvers. One of the members of the society is the poet William Butler Yeats, who had a fascination with the occult. Neubauer’s author’s note says that the Golden Dawn was a real group (even though Nightingale is fictional), and Yeats was a member, but in real life he had left the order a few years before the events of the novel.
Because Redvers cannot be a part of the investigation, he stays on the opposite side of the island from Jane, and they have to meet in secret. This separation means that we don’t get as much of the witty dialogue between the two that we usually do, so some readers might be disappointed. But we see some of it during their secret meetings, and there is a big pay-off at the end, but I don’t want to spoil things by saying what it is.
Jane stays in a cottage owned by a couple, Michael and Fiona McCrary, along with Netta, a young woman who’s a member of the Order of the Golden Dawn. Michael shares Jane’s skepticism about the occult, but Fiona has an uncanny ability to tell the future with tarot cards, and even Jane has to admit that her tarot readings usually prove to be right. Netta begins behaving erratically, first locking herself in her room and then wandering the moors, in the cold, rainy Scottish March weather, wearing nothing but a cloak. It turns out she wants to leave the order. But the order doesn’t let people leave very easily.
Soon after Netta expresses this wish, her dead body is found on a hill, with mysterious scratch marks all over her. At first, since there are no obvious wounds besides the scratches, it is not clear whether she died of exposure or was murdered, and the autopsy is inconclusive. (This being a mystery, though, of course she was murdered.) Shortly after Netta’s death, her father appears on the island, showing less concern about his daughter than about the contents of her will, which makes Jane start to doubt that he really is her father. Netta was quite wealthy, having inherited money from her mother. Her father, who did not have access to the money while Netta was alive, made some bad investments and needs the money.
Two versions of Netta’s will turn up, one leaving all her money to her father and the other leaving it to the Golden Dawn. Nightingale, of course, insists that the second version of the will is the authentic one, and has a loud argument with Netta’s father. Relationships among the members of the Golden Dawn are complicated. The group had split into two factions: Nightingale’s and another, led by Mina Mathers, one of the original founders of the society (who was a real person). Some say the split happened because of a love affair gone bad. Rumors fly about Nightingale’s romantic relations with various female members of the Golden Dawn, but none of them have been substantiated.
Another female member of the group, Dion Fortune (also a real person) claims that Mina attacked her and Netta on the “astral plane,” a higher plane of existence, and tells a fanciful story about black cats sent by Mina attacking the two women. Jane doesn’t believe it for a minute, of course. Who, among the members of the Golden Dawn, could have killed Netta?
As the group prepares for a spring equinox rite, which attracts people from both factions, as well as non-members of the group, to the island, Jane must find out who the murderer is. Nightingale and others are starting to become suspicious of her because she’s asking so many questions, and they’re beginning to think her interest in the rites of the Golden Dawn isn’t genuine. If she doesn’t find the killer soon, she might find herself the next victim.
Secrets of a Scottish Isle is an intriguing, suspenseful novel, even though I admit I guessed who the killer was. But there is one turn in the plot that I got wrong. (I was right about who, but not why.) Neubauer, as always, immerses the reader in the atmosphere of whichever setting she’s writing about. I felt the cold, damp, and gloom of the Scottish winter/early spring. It’s the perfect spooky setting for a mystery about occult societies. The series is perfect for fans of Tasha Alexander and Dianne Freeman, even though it’s set later than those two series. The romantic banter between the two leads will be familiar to readers of Alexander or Freeman. I am looking forward to finding out where Jane’s adventures will take her next. — Vicki Kondelik