Four Thousand Days

This intriguing series launch from Trow (the Kit Marlowe Tudor mysteries) stars real-life British archaeologist Margaret Murray. Early one morning in 1900, Constable Adam Crawford, an archaeology enthusiast who attends Murray’s weekly public lectures at London’s University College, encounters a drunken man having trouble entering a building to collect an overdue rent. Crawford winds up accompanying the rent collector inside, where in the flat of the delinquent renter, they find the body of a young woman Crawford recognizes as Helen Richardson, a student of Murray’s. Near her bed is a vial smelling of cyanide. The verdict of suicide doesn’t sit well with Crawford, who enlists Murray in the subsequent investigation in the hope that her expertise with much older human remains will be useful. Murray learns that among Richardson’s many secrets was knowledge of a sensational archaeological find. An unused rail ticket in the victim’s possession leads Murray to Hampton-on-Sea, where she teams up with a retired Scotland Yarder, and the discovery of another dead woman deepens the puzzle. Assured pacing matches the solid plot twists. Fans of Elizabeth Peters’s Amelia Peabody will want to see more of Murray. (Feb.)