Genre: Mystery, Historical
LGBTQ+ Category: Gay
Reviewer: Ulysses
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About The Book
Albert Arbon collapses at Delamere House after a three-day trek. His only son, Robert, has vanished after seeing a strange light in the Suffolk sky, and Arbon is desperate to find him.
Detectives Jack and Baxter, with young Simeon, accompany Arbon back to his remote Suffolk farmhouse, only to find themselves faced with a combination of rural legends seemingly tied to a series of unsettling events. A body lies inexplicably in the middle of an untouched wheat field. Other children have gone missing. There is talk of a ‘fire snake’, and no-one dare share the secrets of what can be seen from Snake Hill.
As the investigation deepens, Jack must navigate more than the mystery. He must also face the burdens of responsibility — not only for uncovering the truth and doing the right thing, but also for guiding Simeon, a boy on the cusp of manhood, who’s willing to risk everything to prove himself.
Snake Hill is the ninth book in the Delamere Files mystery series. The books should be read in order, starting with ‘Finding a Way.’
The Review
With the exception of the excursion to Templar Island and its castle, Jackson Marsh’s great series about the Delamere Investigators has kept us in and around London. It has all been about the dark underbelly of the great city in one way or another.
“Snake Hill” shows us the dark underbelly of the country; the lurking fear and danger beneath the rolling hills and verdant farms of the postcard perfect Suffolk villages. It’s a brilliant ploy, and the result is a highly-charged page turner that brings together two historical realities: contraband smuggling and child trafficking.
Once more, Jack Merrit and his assistant Benjamin Baxter head off to solve a mystery that literally falls into Delamere House. A prosperous Suffolk farmer desperate to find his teenaged son somehow walks all the way to Delamere House and collapses. Why did he do this, and why did he think that Jack Merrit and his team would be the right men to solve the mystery?
This time, if the book is anyone’s, it is the almost-seventeen-year-old Simeon Felman’s book. We’ve watched Sim evolve rapidly since Jack and Will rescued him and his younger brother, Aaron, from a wretched fate. Now Jack has been made legal guardian to these boys who, although they could be his brothers, he sees more and more from the viewpoint of a father. Simeon is an amusing, endearing character who, in the safety and comfort of Delamere House, has quietly become a man.
Marsh does a great job of building up the sinister qualities of the fictional Suffolk village of Denham. The constant back-and-forth among Jack, Bax, and Sim continues to shed light on their personalities and their perception of the world around them, even as it ties them together not only as a team but as a found family. Even though Will and Charlie are not present much in this story, their presence is very much in evidence through the “on screen” trio. Indeed, all of the ongoing relationships tied to Delamere house are essential to the rich world-building that the author gives us.
There are fun surprises in this story, but also moments of dark ugliness that will forever change the way you feel about the “pretty” countryside that is held up as the ideal of British culture. Marsh has, as always, done his homework, and makes sure we feel the goodness as well as the evil. I don’t want to say any more, because it is the discovery along the way that makes these stories so gratifying and emotionally powerful.
5 stars.
The Reviewer
Ulysses Grant Dietz grew up in Syracuse, New York, where his Leave It to Beaver life was enlivened by his fascination with vampires, from Bela Lugosi to Barnabas Collins. He studied French at Yale, and was trained to be a museum curator at the University of Delaware. A curator since 1980, Ulysses has never stopped writing fiction for the sheer pleasure of it. He created the character of Desmond Beckwith in 1988 as his personal response to Anne Rice’s landmark novels. Alyson Books released his first novel, Desmond, in 1998. Vampire in Suburbia, the sequel to Desmond, is his second novel.
Ulysses lives in suburban New Jersey with his husband of over 41 years and their two almost-grown children.
By the way, the name Ulysses was not his parents’ idea of a joke: he is a great-great grandson of Ulysses S. Grant, and his mother was the President’s last living great-grandchild. Every year on April 27 he gives a speech at Grant’s Tomb in New York City.
