Our Lady of Pain
A Mark
Tartaglia Mystery
Elena
Forbes
MacAdam Cage (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1-59692-316-4 (1596923164)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59692-316-4 (9781596923164)
Publication Date: November 2008
List Price: $24.00
Synopsis (from
the publisher): On a snowy February morning, London art dealer Rachel
Tenison goes for a jog through a dark and deserted Holland Park. Still
giddy from the previous evening, her legs wobbly from too much drink
and too little sleep, she trips and falls at the bottom of an icy hill.
Lying on her back, enjoying the sensation of snowflakes melting on her
skin, she savors the unexpected stillness of the moment. But then
there’s a sharp crack of a tree branch close behind her, followed
by a voice, softly calling her name.
Two days later, when Rachel’s naked, frozen body is discovered in
the park, bound and arranged in a strangely symbolic manner, Detectives
Mark Tartaglia and Sam Donovan are assigned the case. Still haunted by
the Bridegroom, a chillingly seductive serial killer with a penchant
for lonely girls and deadly heights, Tartaglia and Donovan are forced
to put the past behind them as they try to uncover the identity of
Rachel’s murderer. As they begin their investigation, however,
they find that as much mystery surrounds Rachel’s life as it does
her death. And when a tip from a journalist draws their attention to
similarities between this murder and an unsolved crime committed the
year before, the web becomes more tangled than ever ...
Review: Our Lady of Pain is British author
Elena Forbes second novel in the London detective Mark Tartaglia
mystery series. While it’s a good read and with lots to recommend
it, it doesn’t have the same degree of tension and excitement as
Forbes blockbuster debut Die With Me
that introduced Tartaglia and his team and “the
Bridegroom”, a far more frightening and cold-blooded killer than
the perpetrators Tartaglia tries to link to the two murders in Our Lady of Pain.
After getting to know Detective Tartaglia, his family and friends in
Forbes first novel, it’s a pleasure to meet them again in this
one. There are enough allusions to the earlier novel to refresh
spine-tingling memories of the case or to make new readers want to read
it. And there’s a consistency to the characters and their
motivations that consolidates their credibility and their actions as
this time they search for the murderer -- or is it murderers? -- of two
mid-thirties women, strangled, stripped and their bodies grotesquely
displayed with signs of S and M and references to a poem dedicated to
“Our Lady of Pain.” Tartaglia is still dodging his
sister’s invitations to have him meet the potential girl friends
she has chosen for him. Sam Donovan, his gal Friday, is still
repressing her feelings for her boss and again manages to get herself
embroiled with a romantic partner who is nothing but trouble. And the
neighbourhood cat continues to wander in and out of Tartaglia’s
flat as the mood suits him. And like the cat, Detective “Slick
Nick” Minderedes continues his tomcatting ways in chasing women,
much to Donovan’s dismay, even her anger.
The suspects are credible villains as well, even as they hide their
motivations and lie about their whereabouts forcing Tartaglia and his
crew to ferret out the truth and expose their lies and false alibis.
The first murder victim with her bedroom trunk full of S and M gear is
no angel herself, and her half brother and her best friend are adept at
scattering clouds of fairy dust for Tartaglia, Donovan and their
colleagues to dispel as best they can with every modern resource
available. And while they do their jobs and try to determine if a
second murder is by a serial rapist or a copycat, Forbes tells the
story from the viewpoints of various characters, and presents an
intriguing study of how police team work and procedures combine to
track clues, trace suspects, sift salt from sand and find the guilty
parties -- even the most unlikely of them. And she’s one of the
best at integrating the routines of police work with the emotional
relationships of her characters, leaving readers wanting to know as
much about their private lives as their actions in solving mysteries as
large as murder and as small as the identity of the initials,
“JB.”
Forbes' third novel, Evil in Return,
is in the works.
Special thanks to M. Wayne Cunningham (mw_cunningham@telus.net) for contributing his review of Our Lady of Pain.
Review Copyright © 2009 — M. Wayne Cunningham — All Rights Reserved — Reprinted with Permission
Have you read Our Lady of Pain? How would you rate it?
Mysteries in this series ...
Die With Me
MacAdam Cage (Hardcover), October 2007
ISBN-10: 1-59692-277-X (159692277X)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59692-277-8 (9781596922778)
Our Lady of Pain
MacAdam Cage (Hardcover), November 2008
ISBN-10: 1-59692-316-4 (1596923164)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59692-316-4 (9781596923164)
Omnimystery keywords for Our Lady of Pain ...
Location(s) referenced: London, England.
