Dark Observation

With shades of Daphne du Maurier, Cavendish (In Darkness, Shadows Breathe) returns with a story that alternates between the present and a past mystery that occurred during World War II in London. The protagonist, Violet, works in Prime Minister Churchill’s Cabinet War Rooms. Beyond the horrors of the war, Violet has to solve an occult mystery that haunts her. Beginning in the present day, eight decades after the war’s end, Violet has started seeing apparitions of some not-so-great things from her past, including an unsavory couple; Violet’s granddaughter Heather can also see these specters. The second part of the book follows Violet in her youthful heyday, in 1941. Readers will also be haunted by the ghosts that find Violet, as back in the present day, Heather has been trying to put together the pieces of her grandmother’s mystery. What she finds is profoundly disturbing and lies in the very human evils of war. Readers should look out for scenes with Churchill himself, who figures prominently.