CL Pauwels at Large

My biggest (only?) regret at writing mysteries – and reading/watching so many of them, is that it’s really hard to find one that surprises me. Usually I’ve got the plot (mostly) figured out and the villain nailed long before the big reveal. Not so with Alice Feeney’s Daisy Darker…boy, did this one keep me guessing!

I was hooked from the moment young Daisy Darker – she of the “broken heart” – introduced me to Nana’s tidal island and the family home, complete with a wall of clocks. Hubby is a budding horologist (clock repairer), and while I’ve grown used to five or six different cuckoos/chimes/strikes at (or at least near) each hour in our home, the thought of 80 clocks – one for each year of Nana’s life, is both fascinating and horrifying.

But Nana’s clocks, and Daisy, take a darker turn (pun intended by Feeney as well, I’m sure) when the rest of the family arrives to celebrate Nana’s 80^th birthday. Dysfunctional doesn’t begin to describe them when they get together for the first time in many years! And then, beginning with Nana, murder takes them one by one. Shades of Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians – but with a twist I certainly never saw coming.

I’ve been tempted to re-read Daisy Darker, looking for clues I’m sure Feeney must have given us, but my teetering #TBR pile beckons. I will, however, be adding more of her books to that list.