Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Secret Lives by Mark de Castrique

Mystery writer Mark de Castrique is a veteran of the broadcast and film production business. In Washington DC, he directed news and public affairs programs and received an Emmy Award for his documentary film work.

He’s written a number of thrillers and mysteries including the Blackman Agency Investigations series, the Buryin’ Barry series, and some stand-alone novels. In Secret Lives (Poisoned Pen Press, 2022) he introduces Ethel Fiona Crestwater, a seventy-five-year-old retired FBI agent who now rents rooms in her Arlington, Virginia, house to active FBI and Secret Service agents and who runs circles around her boarders, literally and figuratively.

Ethel has just rented a room to her only relative Jesse, a double first cousin twice removed, while he attends a local university. A running joke in the story is the way she always introduces him with his full relationship to her, not just cousin but double first cousin twice removed.

Jesse is up at 4:30 in the morning FaceTiming with his girlfriend who is attending university in London, when he hears gunshots outside his window. He sees one figure on the ground and two running away. He dashes to the scene where Ethel joins him after calling the police and an ambulance. They both recognize the victim as another of Ethel’s boarders, who lives in Richmond but stays with Ethel when he has temporary duty in the National Capitol Region.

Thus begins a complicated tale of murder, theft, and deceit involving millions of dollars in counterfeit money and cryptocurrency. Along the way the reader is treated to a thorough explanation of how cryptocurrency works and why it is such a dubious commodity.

Law enforcement jurisdiction over the murder gets a lot of play. It took place in Arlington County but the victim was a Secret Service agent who had worked a joint operation with the FBI. All three groups agree to work together but naturally pursue private Agency interests. I had trouble keeping all of the factions separate. Ethel had long-running associations with all three and she tailors what she tells each one carefully while she runs her own investigation.

Anyone who has lived in the Washington, DC, region will recognize the many local landmarks cited in the book.

Ethel is a fine addition to the ranks of Mrs. Pollifax, Sister Jane Arnold, Victoria Trumbull, and the many other senior sleuths who remind mystery readers that age does not limit detective skills.

The next book in the series, Dangerous Women, is scheduled for publication in October 2023.

Highly recommended.

 

·         Publisher: ‎Poisoned Pen Press (October 11, 2022)

·         Language‏: ‎English

·         Paperback‏: ‎288 pages

·         ISBN-10‏: ‎1728258308

·         ISBN-13: ‎978-1728258300

 

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2023 

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.