The Curse of Penryth Hall by Jess Armstrong (2023) – Ruby Vaughn spent World War I as a front line ambulance driver surrounded by death and devastation. Since the war, she’s lived a life to help her forget it all. That changes when her elderly landlord sends to a small village with a shipment of books. There Ruby will have to confront the past she’s trying to forget, meet a charismatic healer, and face down the curse of Penryth Hall.
Why I Liked It – Good characters with a good mystery to solve.
Jess Armstrong gets her career as a mystery novelist off to a great start with this award winner. Her lead character, Ruby Vaughn, gives her plenty of room to explore in the follow up books.
The action is set in England in the years following the First World War. Ruby and her best friend Tamsyn worked as ambulance crew, picking up soldiers with devastating wounds from the front lines, and racing them back to hospitals. It’s a terrible, soul rending job, and Ruby has spent the last several years trying to forget. She’s the daughter of a wealthy American family who disgraced herself in spectacular fashion. It’s the 1920s, and the role of women is changing. But the expectations fora young woman in the upper socioeconomic classes are quite strict. To try and salvage their daughter’s future, Ruby’s parents send her to England. There she continues a life of blackout boozing and partying. The best thing to come of this destructive lifestyle is the 80-something year old Mr. Owen, who is both her boss and landlord. He doesn’t interfere with her life and keeps her busy with annoying little jobs along the way.
It’s one of those jobs that sets the action in motion. She needs to deliver a box of books, a box she is not permitted to open, to a house in Cornwall. Mysterious, but easy enough. The trouble begins when she realizes that it’s the same village where Tamsyn lives. Now married to the local nobility, their last moment together went horribly wrong. It was at the wedding, and Ruby made another of her disastrous displays. Any hope of a quick in and out trip is soon eliminated. Tasmyn’s husband (an abuser) dies a bloody death. The local villagers swear it’s the family curse, killing this scion of the family just as it killed his uncle. When a handsome but strange local healer enters the scene, Ruby is stuck in the middle of the investigation into the death. Before she’s done, she may become the object of the killer’s attention as well.
There’s a lot to like here. Let me get two small qualms out of the way first. The setting of the story in 1922 plays little importance to the story itself. It gives us the background on why Ruby is such a mess, but the rest of the story could easily be set a century later. I wish there was more examination of the world in Cornwall in the years that followed the Great War. The other issue resolves itself as the book progresses. The Ruby Vaughn that we meet at the beginning of the book isn’t a particularly attractive character. Clearly running from the demons of the war, she is a self-centered brat. She shrugs off her behavior without taking responsibility for any of it. Mr. Owen may be the only person who sees the inevitable crash that’s coming. It made her really annoying to me as a reader. It takes a while for her to grow out of most of that. Fortunately, she’s surrounded by characters the slowly turn her in the direction that’s best for her. They never attempt to take Ruby’s independence from her, but they force her to see that what she does in life is her responsibility.
Best of all, there’s a fascinating mystery to solve here! How did Tamsyn’s husband, Sir Edward Chenowyth, die? Was it the curse, or was it something more mundane? What is left of the more than friendship once shared between Ruby and Tamsyn? And what is a “Pellar”? In the person of Ruan Kivell, he’s a tall, good looking older man with strange, compelling eyes. He also has some kind of special powers, and a connection with Ruby. Sir Edward will not be the only person attacked. The revelation of the killer is a fair play ending. There are clues there if you see them.
Overall, a fun read that I enjoyed a great deal. There are now two more Ruby Vaughn novels, and I look forward to checking them out as well.
Rating – **** Recommended
Stories Are My Life 
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