Death in the Aviary

This ho-hum locked-room mystery from Dowd (Murder Most Cold) centers on frustrated 1920s London gossip columnist Charlotte Blood, who longs to be taken seriously as a reporter. Charlotte’s chance comes when her curmudgeonly editor-in-chief sends her undercover as an ornithologist to Dartmoor’s Ravenswick Abbey, the home of the raven-obsessed Ravenswick family. There, she’s tasked with investigating the year-old murder of Charles Ravenswick and the subsequent sale of the family’s priceless manuscripts. Widowed by WWI, raised in a bubble, and lacking all knowledge of birds, Charlotte gets off to a rocky start at the estate, where she’s rattled by spooky winds and the sounds of untraceable footsteps. Packed with Easter eggs—the Dartmoor setting, ghostly hounds, and swooping ravens conjure Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Edgar Allan Poe all at once—Dowd’s plot eventually gets consumed by its influences. Add in overwrought prose, an unappealing protagonist, and a plodding pace, and the result is a swing and a miss. Gothic mystery fans would be better served by Mary Dixie Carter’s Marguerite by the Lake. Agent: James Wills, Watson Little. (Sept.)