The Hidden Man

Set in 1742, British author Blake’s superior third whodunit featuring Dr. Luke Fidelis and coroner Titus Cragg (after 2013’s Dark Waters) centers on an impossible crime. When Philip Pimbo—a merchant and goldsmith in Preston, England, who has ambitions of opening his own private bank—is discovered shot to death behind the locked door of his office, Fidelis rejects the obvious explanation that Pimbo took his own life. The doctor is sure that he would have first shot his pet dog, which was always with him, before turning the gun on himself. “The man that kills himself, first kills his dog—that’s a proverb in Ireland,” Fidelis notes. Meanwhile, Cragg, an executor of Pimbo’s estate, is under pressure to resolve the dead man’s business matters from Preston’s mayor, who’s desperate to recover the town’s money that was entrusted to Pimbo. The sleuths are an entertaining duo, and Blake again couples skillful plotting with authentic period details. [em](Mar.) [/em]