Love Dies Twice by Barbara Wilson

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The details…

  • Title: Love Dies Twice
  • Author: Barbara Wilson
  • Publisher: Cedar Street Editions
  • Publication date: May 27, 2022
  • Available formats: ebook, paperback 
  • File size: 1665 KB
  • Print length: 362 pages
  • Genre: mystery 
  • Themes: murder, cover-up, wrong-doing

The blurb…

Cassandra Reilly, the Irish-American translator and amateur sleuth, shares a flat in London with her long-time friend, retired bassoonist Nicky Gibbons. Their lives are disrupted when Cassandra attends a lecture on the beguines, laywomen who lived in sisterhood in thirteenth-century Belgium. The beguines were the subject of a popular historical mystery series by Stella Terwicker who died ten years before, but whose literary estate is still creating problems for those who knew her, including her biographer. Cassandra is soon pulled into investigating a possibly suspicious death, a task that takes her from the Ladies’ Pond in London’s Hampstead Heath to the medieval city of Bruges to the seacoast of Devon. With Nicky’s help, Cassandra must unravel a story of desire, lies, and love that stretches back decades to decades to the rabble-rousing years of queer liberation and feminist publishing.

My thoughts…

Cassandra Reilly’s unsolicited nose-poking yields yet another captivating story for mystery readers to enjoy. This time Cassandra’s first-person narrative leads readers through the inner workings of the publishing world as she tries to ferret out who killed Yvonne Henley, a well-known and outspoken feminist and author. The trail to her murderer is intriguing, and the ending is surprising. Fans of Wilson’s Cassandra Reilly series will not be disappointed.

Cassandra Reilly is probably one of the more interesting mature queer female characters in wlw fiction today. She’s more or less a modern-day Agatha Christie, employing a talent for amateur sleuthing. She snoops around in places that have piqued her curiosity and aroused her suspicion, even if her volunteer detective work is unwanted. However, that never deters her; she digs around until she’s extracted the answers she needs, even when it’s dangerous. Her curiosity is the ultimate conduit for the tension and suspense of this mystery, making Love Dies Twice a real page-turning thrill.

Wilson’s storytelling in Love Dies Twice is everything readers have come to expect from her. It’s tightly constructed, well-formed and engrossing. Readers are easily caught up in the drama of this mysterious tale. As always, she brings something unique and interesting to the story, giving readers detailed content that provides the plot with a mantle of substance and dimension. Readers walk away learning something about the publishing world and the kinds of people that inhabit it. It’s a nice bonus. Not only do readers get a well-written, engrossing mystery, they get a smart, well-researched story.

Final remarks…

If you like well-written, shrewdly designed mysteries and haven’t yet become acquainted with Barbara Wilson’s riddling whodunits, then I’d strongly recommend picking this book up. Her well-layered, complex plots are splendidly constructed and original. Her writing style is well-suited for mystery, with its well-formed prose and intelligent, but precise word choice. Readers can count on a solidly constructed story world filled with interesting characters and plot-twisting drama. Love Dies Twice is cover to cover, intriguing adventure, and a solid two thumbs up.

Strengths…

  • Well-written
  • Well-plotted 
  • Intelligent
  • Layered, complex 
  • Engrossing 
  • Entertaining 

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