A locket that belongs to a victim of a WW1 maritime disaster sends Jefferson Tayte, geneaologist, on a new adventure into history. As usual, Steve Robinson does a great job of juggling modern day detecting with historical fiction, this time against the back-drop of pre-WW1 Europe. Throw in some espionage and you have another wonderful addition to the Jefferson Tayte series. Highly recommended!

A great historical fiction mystery! The era is well written and Steve Robinson is an author to watch!

(I received a free copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.)

On a foggy night in 1914, the ocean liner Empress of Ireland sank en route between Canada and England. The disaster saw a loss of life comparable to the Titanic and the Lusitania, and yet her tragedy has been forgotten.
When genealogist Jefferson Tayte is shown a locket belonging to one of the Empress’s victims, a British admiral’s daughter named Alice Stilwell, he must travel to England to understand the course of events that led to her death.
Tayte is expert in tracking killers across centuries. In The Lost Empress, his unique talents draw him to one of the greatest tragedies in maritime history as he unravels the truth behind Alice’s death amidst a backdrop of pre-WWI espionage.

This is the fourth title in the Jefferson Tayte series. It is the first one I have read.

I have read a squillion mystery novels over the years and feel pretty confident I can tell a good one from a bad one. And I also know the things that make a good idea go bad. And I think that's kinda what happened here.

Don't get me wrong - the idea is very cool, and the author's knowledge of genealogy seems, to my limited knowledge, quite good. Alice was a fascinating character and really would have loved just a story about her, to be honest.

Cos the problems stem from there - Jefferson was pretty dull. I didn't connect to him, nor did I care if he solved the mystery (even though, judging from a lot of reviews, most readers figured it out quite quickly), the other characters were a bit flat and there were moments through this reasonably short book when I was bored. Should never be bored in a 300 page book...

Overall, I will go and check out the others as most review have said "not as good as the previous ones", so I will give them a go and put this one in perspective.


Paul
ARH

Thank you for the book, but I could not get into it. I will not post a negative review.