In a quiet village in the wild lands of the Scottish borders, disgraced academic Cordelia Hemlock is trying to put her life back together. Grieving the loss of her son, she seeks out the company of the dead, taking comfort amid the ancient headstones and crypts of the local churchyard. When lightning strikes a tumbledown tomb, she glimpses a corpse that doesn’t belong among the crumbling bones. … bones. But when the storm passes and the body vanishes, the authorities refuse to believe the claims of a hysterical ‘outsider’.
Teaming up with a reluctant witness, local woman Felicity Goose, Cordelia’s enquiries all lead back to a former POW camp that was set up in the village during the Second World War. But not all Gilsland’s residents welcome the two young women’s interference. There are those who believe the village’s secrets should remain buried … whatever the cost.
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The Mausoleum by David Mark is a chilling tale for mystery lovers.
The story opens with an elderly Cordelia and Felicity, waiting by the bed of an old man, trying to get him talk about something in 2010. Then the plot unfolds with series of flashbacks in the point of view of both Cordelia and Felicity. In the year 1967, the women meet in a graveyard. A sudden rainstorm and a lightning cause a tree to fall over an ancient crypt. The women are shocked to find a corpse that looks fresh as it has been buried, instead of bones and skull. That night, Fairfox, who heads to investigate the scene dies.
The women set off to the scene only to find the corpse is no longer there. Cordelia is hell bent on what she saw and she’s determined to figure out the secret beneath it. The rest of the story revolves around the women on how they uncovers the mystery.
The Mausoleum was so different from my usual reads, but I found it quiet interesting and I was intrigued the entire time. Various scenarios popped into my mind, playing the guessing game. I liked the writing style and the mystery surrounding the plot. I thought it was built very well. The Mausoleum is definitely worth a read.
**I received an ARC for this book in exchange of an honest review**
A solid read with a good plot but at times it felt really confusing. Could have done with a more relaxing structure.
4 stars
This story is an unusual one.
It is 1967 and Cordelia Hemlock is still grieving the loss of her two-year old son. She is lying in a graveyard when Felicity Goose happens upon her. (Aren’t those great character names?) At first Cordelia is distrusting but then the women become fast friends. While they are talking and trying to run from an oncoming storm, a lightning strike hits a mausoleum. The women see a body that does not belong in the graveyard.
The body then disappears. A neighbor and local historian Fairfax says he will investigate, but his car crashes on the way to view the site. He is killed. The women decide to look into the mystery themselves. They are, on the surface, very different women but become close. They share their burdens, Cordelia a little more reluctantly than Felicity. Felicity is patient, while Cordelia is not. Cordelia is educated, but she learns much from Felicity.
What they discover is that the mystery goes back to World War II. Fairfax has written down the words of a man who tells him his story of what occurred to him during WW II. He describes the torture and cruelty of the Nazi Gestapo and the French Milice that went on and was horrendous. He called the man “Abel.” Is this the man whose body the women saw?
This book is told from both Cordelia and Felicty’s points of view using the accents the women would have spoken. I appreciated the way Mr. Mark was able to switch back and forth to give the two women their own voices. This is a well written and plotted novel that switches back and forth between 1967 and 2010.
I want to thank NetGalley and Severn House/Severn House Publishers for forwarding to me a copy of this interesting and very good story for me to read, enjoy and review.