Friday, January 8, 2021

MARION LANE AND THE MIDNIGHT MURDER :: T.A. Willberg

A version of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness and is republished here with permission.



"The alleyway was quiet tonight, the perfect setting for the conveyance of secrets" as an unidentified woman confides one she's held for seven years. This shadowy intrigue permeates the opening of T.A. Willberg's debut, Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder, sucking readers into a fun and fast-paced story filled with murder, mystery, lies and Bondian gadgetry in 1958 London.



The how and who of the transmission plunges the narrative into the bowels of the city, where myth and history reside. Behind a loose brick, a carrier cylinder connects with miles of underground pneumatic piping. The piping system, like a "magical, invisible postman," routes hundreds of hidden mailboxes to one location--the Filing Department of the Inquirers, nameless sleuths who guard the city. Because the department operates outside the legal system, no one is sure it exists, only that justice is often mysteriously served.



Marion Lane longs to escape from under the thumb of her grandmother, who disapproves of independent women having their own lives. Marion's life changes drastically when an old friend of her deceased mother offers her a job at Miss Brickett's Secondhand Books and Curiosities. But Miss Brickett's has no customers, and Marion soon understands she's been recruited as an apprentice Inquirer.



Willberg creates an exceptional sense of place, and her diverse (and expansive) cast of characters makes for a long list of suspects when receipt of the secret results in murder. Marion and her cohorts race against time, villains and devilishly entertaining contraptions to throw a wrench in an evil plot. 

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About Malcolm Avenue Review

I was lucky enough to be born and raised in a nifty, oak-shaded ranch house on Malcolm Avenue, a wide-laned residential street with little through traffic, located amid the foothills of Northern California. It was on that street and in that house I learned most of my adolescent life lessons, and many grown-up ones to boot. Malcolm Avenue was "home" for more than thirty years.

It was on Malcolm Avenue, through and with my family and the other families that made up our neighborhood of characters, that I first learned about and gained an appreciation for the things I continue to love the most to this day: music, animals, photography, sports, television/movies and, of course, books.

I owe a debt of gratitude to that life on Malcolm Avenue. It gave me a sense of community and friendship, support and adventure. For better and worse, life on that street likely had the biggest impact on the person I've become. So this blog, and the things I write here, are all, at their base level, a little bit of a love letter to Malcolm Avenue.

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