The Deadly Inheritance of Everest Macdonald by AJ West

I was given a copy of The Deadly Inheritance of Everest Macdonald in return for an honest review. The true story behind it is remarkable, and the brilliant narrative style of Sunday Times bestselling author A J West had me hooked from the start. I want to include extracts which caught my eye, so the publisher’s synopsis of the plot is included below in italics.

Everest Macdonald was a real person. When the story begins, during WW1, she is a middle-aged wife, mother and farmer. Everest’s father begs her on his deathbed to find out the truth about his brother’s murder. Following a trail of unreliable memoirs, diaries and letters, she traces her forebears’ experiences as Victorian adventurers. At times the story is heavy with dark realism, but the earthy humour West expresses through Everest’s dry comments keeps the overall tone light.

There is an evocative word picture of Everest’s father. ‘Colonel T.H. Lewin, once the legendary hero of the Chittagong Hills, known by the Mizo tribes as the great Thangliana, now seventy-seven years old and hollow as a fallen tree.’

In this passage Everest describes an ageing actress. ‘I assume my cousin is playing the part of the Christmas nymph. It must be a stretch; she’s older than me by a few years and I’m no more a nymph than I am a horse.’

A retired London police officer is one of several characters Everest tracks down. ‘Not seen it in all this time, but there it was, buried at the back of the cupboard behind the other knives, just where I left it.’

Out of the blue, an adoring young bride is told she will be moving from suburban London to the Falkland Islands. ‘Are we going to be sheep farmers? Apparently so.’ She does not know that this is only the beginning of her travels, and her troubles.

I recommend The Deadly Inheritance of Everest Macdonald to anyone who enjoys tales of adventure, jealousy and murder, set long before computers and mobile phones. The account of London’s historic theatreland is a bonus.

1915, Surrey. As the Great War rages on the continent, Everest Macdonald, wife and mother, is summoned to her father's deathbed and entrusted with a final urgent task. She must uncover the truth behind the murder of her uncle, the celebrated Victorian actor William Terriss, a crime that has haunted her family for decades.

In 1897, Terriss was stabbed to death outside London's Adelphi Theatre, a killing that shocked Victorian society. The murderer was swiftly arrested and confined to Broadmoor, the case declared closed. Yet years later, a sealed package of evidence passed to Everest by her dying father casts doubt on the official verdict and the haste with which it was reached.

Drawn back to wartime London, with her husband and children left behind, Everest begins her investigation, following a trail that leads her into the world of late-Victorian theatre, where fame and fortune mask obsession, envy and cruelty. With time running out and her father's strength failing, Everest must uncover what really happened on the night Terriss died, and shed light on the unsettling legacy he left behind.

Based on an extraordinary true story, The Deadly Inheritance of Everest Macdonald is a dark, atmospheric historical mystery and a compelling adventure. An unlikely investigator risks everything to pursue one of the most notorious killings of the Victorian stage.