Lately I’ve been reading a number of books fitting into the category of magical murder mystery, or fantasy detective story, and I’m really enjoying them. That’s not surprising, since I love fantasy fiction, and ever since watching BBC’s Sherlock, I’ve been a fan of Victorian detective stories. Starting last year, I read The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett and The Hexologists by Josiah Bancroft. Now I’m continuing my exploration of the subgenre with Murder at Spindle Manor by Morgan Stang. Compared to the other two, this story is a bit more straightforward, since it’s a “locked-room” mystery (similar to the Knives Out movies). In that tradition, all the suspects are in a single location — in this case, the titular Spindle Manor — and no one comes or goes. The main character — a “huntress”-slash-detective named Isabeau Agarwal — solves the whodunit and reveals the murderer. Because it’s a novella, it made for a quick and satisfying read, full of surprising twists. Also, an important part (especially to me) of the fantasy detective story is the world-building woven into the narrative. In the course of solving a crime, there’s often not a lot of time to go exploring a vast fantasy world, so just like the various clues that may reveal who committed the crime, peppered throughout are imaginative features that make the world of this story both interesting and unique.

Similar to the lead characters in the other two novels, Isabeau Agarwal is intelligent, savvy, and respected for her abilities. She is first a huntress, someone tasked with pursuing and killing a creature known as a doppelwyrm that murders people and takes over their appearance and identity. When Isabeau tracks her quarry to Spindle Manor, she starts out trying to deduce which one of the hotel guests is the monster in disguise — until one of them gets killed. Did the doppelwyrm prey on a victim, or was it just a normal human murder? Now Isabeau needs to solve the crime first in order to get on with her mission.

While the format of the story is simple enough, I was surprised at the plot twists that Stang was able to throw in — all the way to the very end (so don’t close that book early!). Some of the twists were merely people being deceptive and sneaky; but others were outlandish, weird, and could only happen in a fantasy world where so much more than doppelwyrms exist. The suspects and characters were a nice blend of typical Victorian types: a businessman, a rich lady, a military officer, and their servants, alongside some fantastical individuals such as a medium and a mesmer (i.e. hypnotist) — who in this world have enhanced abilities to summon spirits and perform other supernatural feats. This mix really adds a bit of freshness and fun to the typical mystery formula. There might never be enough time in a crime mystery for much character development (after all, murders need to be solved quickly so we can put the perpetrators away), but these characters were quirky and interesting enough to be distinct and memorable.

You might be wondering whether the author puts enough clues into the story that readers can actually solve the mystery by being observant. Though I don’t often read a mystery to race the detective to the answer, here it felt like the right information was provided for readers to piece things together. Despite that, there were still quite a few surprises that caught me off-guard. By the end, I felt truly satisfied that both mysteries were answered, and I had a great time watching Isabeau figure it all out. I loved all the extra elements of fantasy that made things interesting, and I’m happy that there are some breadcrumbs remaining to feed my desire to read more in this series and explore the broader world.

4 stars

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