Review copy was received from Author. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
A Trace of Deceit by Karen Odden Series: Victorian Mystery #2
Published by William Morrow on December 17, 2019
Genres: Historical Fiction, Mystery
Pages: 416
Format: Paperback
Source: Author
Goodreads
Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple
Edwin is dead. That’s what Inspector Matthew Hallam of Scotland Yard tells Annabel Rowe when she discovers him searching her brother’s flat for clues. While the news is shocking, Annabel can’t say it’s wholly unexpected, given Edwin’s past as a dissolute risk-taker and art forger, although he swore he’d reformed. After years spent blaming his reckless behavior for their parents’ deaths, Annabel is now faced with the question of who murdered him—because Edwin’s death was both violent and deliberate. A valuable French painting he’d been restoring for an auction house is missing from his studio: find the painting, find the murderer. But the owner of the artwork claims it was destroyed in a warehouse fire years ago.
As a painter at the prestigious Slade School of Art and as Edwin’s closest relative, Annabel makes the case that she is crucial to Matthew’s investigation. But in their search for the painting, Matthew and Annabel trace a path of deceit and viciousness that reaches far beyond the elegant rooms of the auction house, into an underworld of politics, corruption, and secrets someone will kill to keep.
A young art student, in the process of reconciling with a brother who fell into addiction and crime before beginning the process of recovery, must now face that brother’s murky past and her knowledge of the art world to help a Scotland Yard detective get to the truth. This exploration into the world of Victorian art, the darkness of addiction and its effect on siblings, a young woman finding her way to understanding, and a sweet background romance all made for a profoundly good second visit with an author I have come to appreciate for her painting of the Victorian world and a clever mystery.
A Trace of Deceit was the standalone sequel to A Dangerous Duet. I didn’t read A Dangerous Duet and did just fine since the only connection was Matthew Hallam as the detective who became the love interest in this one.
First of all, I must tattle on myself. I went into this one thinking it was the sequel to an earlier book the author had written, A Lady in the Smoke. As you can imagine, I was somewhat confused at first to not spot the connection to the earlier book or feel there was a connection, but then got it sorted out when I paused in my reading to do a proper investigation. Once I had that established, I was able to slip back into Annabel Rowe’s story.
Annabel is the sister of the victim and my heart went out to her not long after I learned her history with her brother and her struggles to love and help a sibling who withdrew from her into his addictions before getting himself put away for forgery. In fact, she feels guilt when she learns he was murdered and not just in trouble with the police again. She is vulnerable, but also driven to get to the truth of both the murder and the mystery of her brother’s life. When the truth came out about what drove Edwin to drink and drugs, I saw that coming. Fortunately, she is a strong woman and she has Matthew who has been working her brother’s case all along. She was all Victorian and yet, her artistic side and her own personality make her something more.
Speaking of art, art plays a huge role in this book. I enjoy art history and learning more about paintings and artists so this part was intriguing to me. It does occupy a large portion of the book and the pace slows down as the book delves into this element. I didn’t mind and spent time on the internet looking up artists and paintings as I went. I could tell the author did due diligence with this element as well as the wider Victorian era setting. Description, dialogue, and manners were all in line with the historical setting.
As to the mystery, whew, there were several possibilities in the beginning including was the painting her brother Edwin was working on genuine or fake? Was it the auction owner? Was it the owner? Her Step-son? Or others from Edwin’s dark past and nothing to do with the painting at all? I had an idea, but dismissed it. In truth, I was more interested in seeing Annabel discover the truth behind Edwin’s addictions and make her emotional journey through it all. I loved her and Matthew together and working on Edwin’s murder. Now, I want to go back for A Dangerous Duet to see more of Matthew solving his sister’s story.
All in all, I was emotionally attached and engaged with the characters and mystery. I love the author’s writing style and the Victorian world of her mysteries. I can’t wait to pick up more and can easily recommend this one and her others to other historical mystery fans.
About Karen Odden
Karen Odden’s interest in the Victorian era goes back to her New York University PhD dissertation. In it, she examined how descriptions of injuries from nineteenth-century railway disasters in popular novels, medical literature, and legal documents helped to create a discourse out of which Freud and other psychologists drew their ideas of “trauma.”
By its very nature, a traumatic injury, with its long, belated trail of symptoms, calls us to look backward, to examine the past. Karen loves writing mysteries partly because the narrative always drives backwards as well as forward. That is, if there is a dead body on page 5, the rest of the book is the story of figuring out how it got there in the first place. In Karen’s books, childhood events shape the characters’ beliefs and assumptions, which they bring to later experiences, often at their peril. Karen loves family secrets and marginal voices, the smelly Thames and the costermongers of 1870s London, medical puzzles and odd facts about poison, anything Scotland Yard, the true weird stories that surround musicians and artists, and good old-fashioned romantic suspense.
Some of her favorite books as a child were the Anne of Green Gables series, Julie of the Wolves, all of the Louisa May Alcott books, Caddie Woodlawn, and The Witch of Blackbird Pond. Karen grew up with the works of Mary Stewart and Victoria Holt, which she found in her grandmother’s library among the bodice-rippers and historical fiction, and with their amateur sleuths and character-driven plots, they still influence her writing.
Karen served as an Associate Lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and taught classes in English literature at New York University and the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. She has contributed essays to books and journals, including Studies in the Novel, Journal of Victorian Culture, and Victorian Crime, Madness, and Sensation; she has written introductions for Barnes and Noble’s Classics Series; and she served as an Assistant Editor for the academic journal Victorian Literature and Culture (Cambridge UP). Prior to receiving her Ph.D. in English, she worked in publishing at Harcourt Brace Jovanovich and McGraw-Hill, as a Media Buyer for Christie’s auction house in New York, and as a bartender at the airport in Rochester, where she honed her listening skills. She is a member of Sisters in Crime (National), Desert Sleuths (SinC Arizona) and Mystery Writers of America.
Karen currently resides in Scottsdale, Arizona with her husband, her two children, and her ridiculously cute rescue beagle, Rosy.
As a lifelong reader, it was inevitable that Sophia would discover book blogs and the joy of blog reviewing.Sophia is a prolific reader and audiobook listener which allows her to experience so many wonderful books, authors, and narrators.Few genres are outside her reading tastes, but her true love is fiction particularly history, mystery, sci-fi, and romance.Though, sorry, no horror or she will run like Shaggy and Scooby.
Friend or follow me at Goodreads.
- 🎧 Candy Apples and Clairvoyants by Danielle Garrett @daniellegarrett.bsky.social #AmandaRonconi @tantoraudio.bsky.social #LoveAudiobooks #KindleUnlimited @sophiarose1816 @authordgarrett @TantorAudio - March 23, 2025
- The Unquiet Bones by Melvin Starr #MelvinStarr @sophiarose1816 - March 19, 2025
- Mastering the Art of French Murder by Colleen Cambridge @colleengleason.bsky.social @colleengleason @kensingtonbooks.bsky.social @KensingtonBooks @sophiarose1816 - March 16, 2025
I really want to read this. But I’m going to read the first one first.
You’ll definitely get to know Matthew better in that one. I enjoyed the heroine and the historical background as much as the mystery. I need to go back and read book one, too.
Oh it’s been so long since I haven’t read a historical fiction!
I go in spells like that with certain genres. Hope you get a chance to pick one up that you like, Melliane. 🙂
Thanks so much to Sophia for this book love! For anyone who comments here, on BOOKS OF MY HEART, I’m happy to send a free bookmark and a signed and specially designed bookplate for either of the books — A DANGEROUS DUET or A TRACE OF DECEIT (or both!). It makes a nice add to a gift. 🙂 Just email me at kmodden@gmail.com.
It was a pleasure, Karen. Thanks for the opportunity and thanks for the thoughtful giveaway to readers.
You know I love historical mysteries with romance so of course this series piques my interest! I’m going to check this one out.
Glad to put you onto it, Rachel. 🙂