A Spark Of Death

Bernadette Pajer

Poisoned Pen Press

ISBN: 978-1-59058-907-6

Reviewed by Ronald Smyth

When University of  Washington Professor Oglethorpe is discovered dead inside the Faraday Cage of the Electric Machine the police cry murder and Professor Bradshaw is the chief suspect, especially in the eyes of the public, thanks to some newspaper articles that imply he should be behind bars. But the killer wants him dead.

This is the first book in a proposed new Professor Bradshaw Mystery Series and the professor is a well drawn and sympathetic character who should be well able to sustain a series. His convincingly written and sympathetic backstory makes his reactions to the murder of a colleague and his attempts to maintain control of his world while it careens out of his ability to do so both believable and interesting, probably the most important part of any novel. The plot too is well set out and the science involved explained in comprehensible terms rather than jargon, such that a layman can grasp the ideas involved.

Nor is the Professor a mere armchair detective but a man of action as well, able to save himself from drowning when called upon for direct action. He’ll need both his brawn and brain when he decides that he must involve himself in a private investigation of the murder if he wishes to clear himself from suspicion and not have to reveal his greatest secret to his son.

After character and plot the next most important part of a book is the setting and here the book falters but only slightly. The time is early 1901 and the place is the bustling town of Seattle, a mixture of western frontier town and new century progress where electicity is as much feared as it is wanted. While not entirely lacking in local and historic touches and details, the sort of tidbit that makes a place come alive in a writers words, I think that a great deal more of the “War of the Currents”, as it was called, between Edison’s direct current and Westinghouse’s alternating could have made the era seem more real, given the importance of the early days of electical invention to this book. I also felt that social attitudes as expressed in this book were too modern to be believed. I remember talking to an elderly relative of mine, born in 1900, and her telling me how in her youth it was no worse to be a murderer than to be an adulterer. Sex outside marriage was strictly forbidden and I did not get anything like that attitude from this book.

Nevertheless, I will certainly be looking for the next Professor Bradshaw mystery.

Copyright 2011 Ronald Smyth