Dead for a Spell

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, clichéd plot elements, and inconsistency of tone mar this historical. Agent: Grace Morgan, Grace Morgan Literary Agency. (Oct.)