Blurb:

A Victorian asylum. A woman imprisoned. A deadly secret.

England, 1875. London journalist, Harris Mortimer, visits a Hampshire lunatic asylum to investigate society’s treatment of the insane, only to find himself in a fateful encounter with a beautiful woman claiming to be wrongly incarcerated.

Horrified by a series of murders, he soon becomes drawn into the strange world of the asylum and begins to wonder who is truly mad and who is sane.

Back in London, Harris meets Nancy Carter, a young woman striving to become a music hall star. Nancy’s shocking act, based on madness and murder, has uncanny parallels with Harris’s recent experiences in Hampshire.

Is it all just a coincidence? To what lengths will one person go to exact their revenge?

As the fates of Harris and Nancy intertwine, they are about to discover the terrible consequences of uncovering the truth.

Music, madness and murder collide in this thrilling historical mystery for fans of Stacey Halls, Jessie Burton and Elizabeth Macneal. A perfect book club fiction selection, Murder at the Lunatics’ Ball discusses themes of social control, the female lunatic stereotype, and the struggle by women to earn their bread and find their voice in Victorian England.

Review:

I’ve had Murder At The Lunatics’ Ball on my TBR for a while after it was recommended to me by another blogger. I love reading crime fiction, and although historical fiction isn’t my usual genre, I did feel at home in this novel quite quickly as RS Leonard describes not only the locations in great detail, but also conveys a lot of the attitudes and language used in Victorian England. This was particularly interesting in terms of the mental health themes that run throughout the novel, as this is a subject that is quite close to home for me. 

The majority of Murder At The Lunatics’ Ball switches perspective between Mr Harris Mortimer and Miss Titania Rosetti. I really appreciated the opportunity to get to know these characters in more depth, although I didn’t always find them likeable. They are both really well constructed central characters and I enjoyed finding out what made them tick. They are surrounded by other interesting characters in the form of staff and patients at the asylum who all really help to create a tense and mysterious atmosphere within the institution. 

The plot of Murder At The Lunatics’ Ball didn’t really go where I expected it to in the sense that the mystery of who had committed the murders and why was not particularly central to the story. I found the novel much more character driven, and whilst this was interesting – and there were some engaging moments – it didn’t provide as much tension as I would have wanted. 

Murder At The Lunatics Ball is available from Amazon.