December Rain

In December of 1718, the two surviving members of the crew of notorious pirate Stede Bonnet (all the others having been hanged along with him in colonial Charles Town, South Carolina) made their way up the Ashley River. Under the cover of darkness and using a mixture of oar and sail, they made their way to Fort Dorchester bringing a cargo of contraband silks and linens for delivery to Joshua Bailey, plantation owner and warehouseman. A mysterious box was also part of the cargo to be delivered but never mentioned by any of the parties other than to answer the question presented by a slave named Jamaica, “Do you have it?’

Three hundred years later some books belonging to the planter Joshua Bailey are stolen from the rare book room of a subscription library in Morgan, South Carolina. One of the suspected thieves is attacked and found near death in the marsh on the edge of an exclusive neighborhood in Morgan. Upon the death of the first man another murder occurs, as the investigation begins to focus on something that occurred 300 years earlier.

The story of December Rain is told in alternating chapters between the current day investigation and the life history of the Nichols family (the youngest of the two seamen making the delivery to Joshua Bailey). Weaving through centuries of historic data from King Georges War through the Civil War, Sidney Lake is asked to help research the connections between the Bailey family and current day, while Tillie James explores oral histories in the Gullah community that date back to Joshua Bailey’s slave holdings. Thus begins a wild ride through history that uncovers a genealogical line no one anticipated.

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Kale on Books: A Lowcountry tale

"Deception" By Tim Holland

Thus far there have been three tales featuring Sidney Lake, a retired professor of English literature at Morgan College. As with his other stories, Lake’s team of investigators feature Tillie James, his Gullah partner, and Harriet “Hattie” Ryan, a Morgan College English professor, now department head—the position Lake held before his retirement.

Also involved in this episode is Ray Morton, a retired Morgan paw enforcement officer who gives the team some legitimate expertise. The murder revolves around the possibility that a copy of Anne Brontë’s novel "The Tenant of Wildfel Hall" is a real first edition with margin notes by the author.

The three-volume work had been stolen from the backseat of a police vehicle and suddenly reappears when it becomes subject to an evaluation on the Arts and Crafts television program. Lake sees the program and wonders if the edition is the same as the one stolen—one he had held and viewed earlier.

Then, add the fact that residents of the Pirate Islands, a nearby Gullah community, were systemically being cheated of their property by out-of-state lawyers working for developers who want to develop the islands to create coastal resorts like Hilton Head and Kiawah Island.

A 90-year-old Gullah friend of Tillie’s has been tricked by a Charlotte, North Carolina lawyer into not paying the tax claim on her home. Instead, he immediately paid the claim and secured the land for his client.

Sidney Lake became convinced there was a connection between the efforts to steal the land and the rare book theft. And Walterboro, South Carolina, with its many antique shops became an obvious point where information on the Brontë volumes might be found.

Holland admitted in his acknowledgement that he became “fascinated with the Brontë family while studying Victorian Literature” as a graduate student at Drew University in Madison NJ. “The novels of the three sisters (Anne, Emily and Charlotte) taught and entertained me, but their life story hooked me as it has so many others.

Thus, he comes to the Brontë saga naturally!

Black opal Books is a small publishing house and nothing against its desire to help and encourage new and established authors, but its promotion efforts apparently are limited. Holland’s series is worth a major nation-wide publicity barrage. It’s THAT good and you’ll enjoy it. Deception does not require reading the earlier two volumes to be appreciated.

*****

Official reviewer for the onlinebookstore.com

I rate Deception 4 out of 4 stars. The book was an engaging, entertaining, enlightening, and intriguing one. It is one of the best mystery novels I have read. And it truly lived up to its title, Deception. I recommend this to book lovers and mature readers, especially those interested in the crime and mystery genre. This can also be a try for people interested in reading things related to history. However, I can't say if the historical occurrences are real or fictional.

Tim Holland

Contemporary and Historic Mysteries

A Sidney Lake and Tillie James Mystery

Reviews

Deception - A Sidney Lake Lowcountry Mystery

The Sidney Lake Mysteries by Tim Holland