What happens when someone asks you to solve their murder... right before they are killed? Rachel Saversnake is invited to a private view of an art exhibition at a gallery. The artist Damaris Gethin is known as the Queen of Surrealism and is debuting a show featuring love models pretending to be waxworks of famous serial killers. Right before her welcome speech Damaris asks Rachel to solve her murder... only then to have Damaris get up on a stage with a guillotine and then have the blade fall and execute her. Rachel can’t resist a mystery but it looks like Damaris killed herself... yet the question remains, what if someone else killer her. Now Rachel will have to go through the suspects and discover all the secrets from illicit romances, past dalliances, fedora wearing doppelgangers, and so much more all happening on Sepulchre Street. This was told in a classic cluefinder way with the story hinting at the beginning of who did it and what was to come. This is part of a series but can be read as a standalone. This is a fun read for fans of gothic mysteries.

*Thanks Netgalley and Aria & Aries, Head of Zeus -- an Aries Book for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

After a spectacular opening scene this settles into something less exciting: lots of violent deaths, lots of identity issues, lots of untypical Golden Age components but they're all thrown in then more or less forgotten about. I mean, they're not really significant, they don't breathe as topics, and we don't feel any emotional impact.

Rachel Savernake was elusive and fascinating in the first couple of books but now she's become close to cosy, and her posse do their established things. The darkness has gone. So this is fun but it was outstaying its welcome towards the end.