About Suffer the Little Children
by Tracy Rowan
175 pages / 52000 words
ISBN: 978-1-61040-153-1
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When Victorian private investigator Nick Romney’s step-father, an Anglican bishop, is murdered, Nick refuses to get involved. At the urging of his family, though, Nick and his lover Davy step in to investigate. Together they uncover the truth of the bishop’s involvement in the dark and horrifying world of child prostitution, the reason why he was killed, and the shocking identity of the murderer.
Review
Alexa Snow, author of Sleeping Stone, writes: To say that David Malvern
is a man in love with private investigator Nick Romney would be an
understatement -- instead, Davy is rapt, spellbound, fascination and
admiration wound together in the same way the lives of the two men are.
They are partners in every sense of the word, even if Davy still knows
little of the years Nick lived before they met. It isn't until they
receive a telegram informing them that Nick's stepfather, Bishop Oliver,
has been murdered and his brother is claiming responsibility for the
crime that Nick comes clean and tells Davy the horrible truths of his
childhood. The couple then returns to London to solve the mystery of the
Bishop's death, a job more complex than either of them would have
imagined, and one which will test their relationship.
Brilliantly written, the language of this novel draws the reader in,
eyes glued to the page, the poetry of the words woven into a tapestry
that a review can barely hope to describe. The Victorian setting fairly
jumps from the page, the sights and sounds and smells of London so
incredibly vivid that it's a shock and a disappointment to lift one's
eyes and find oneself transported back into modern reality. Each
character is distinct, the dialogue is spectacular, and it's clear that
the author never forgets that while the plot is vital in shaping the
story, the *most* important aspect is the characters and how they react
to where the plot takes them.
From the first page to the last, this is a beautiful story, despite the
difficulty of the subject matter. It's likely to appeal to fans of
Sherlock Holmes and the writing of Sarah Waters, and even those who
don't consider themselves mystery readers will find themselves
pleasantly surprised. A love story of the highest caliber, and highly,
highly recommended.
Sample
It was dark when I awoke. The door to the parlor was
open, and I could see Rom sitting in front of the fire with a book on his
lap. "Did you break the code already?" I called to him.
"No. I've only been up for fifteen minutes. Bessie came up to ask if we
wanted supper. It's chops tonight, so I told her yes. She said there's apple
turnovers for afters," he added with a happy grin.
"Let me wash up."
By the time I'd finished, supper was on the table and Romney was pouring
some wine for us. "When we finish supper we can work on the code. I was
distracted earlier; I could not stop thinking about all that money. Fitz, it
has to have something to do with why he was murdered. No rational human
being keeps so much cash hidden in books unless he either needs it for
unsavory reasons or fears having to account for it. We must be allowed to
look into his financial records. Unfortunately that means that I shall have
to speak with my mother and brother."
I set to work on the chop and potatoes, but after a few minutes I felt I had
to stop and ask, "What is it you fear, Nick? What power she has over you,
you give to her."
"I know that." He set his knife and fork on the plate and sat back in his
chair. "My mother is quite childlike, Fitz. She is almost a porcelain doll
in her appearance, being barely five feet in height, with perfect skin and
teeth, golden hair, and wide blue eyes. She is also very doll-like in her
manner. She is..." He sighed. "She is dependent. She was barely sixteen when
she married my father who was thirty years older than she. And she remarried
as quickly as she could after my father's death, utterly without regard for
the sort of man to whom she was entrusting the welfare of her children. She
was unwilling... no, unable to believe that this man in whom she had placed
all her hopes for her own future was anything except her knight in armor,
and to that end, she refused to believe me when I came to her, begging for
help.
"It is hard not to love my mother," he continued. "Even now I believe I do
still love her in spite of all her failures as both a mother and a
responsible adult. Yet I am angry with her, too and would find it difficult
to show her a bit of warmth or affection. It would not be such a problem if
she understood the reason for my anger, but I promise you that once we are
in the same room, she will behave as if I am the one in the wrong for not
playing the loving and dutiful son. She simply cannot understand what her
sins of omission have done to William and myself."
"But perhaps she's changed," I offered. "People do, Nick. She left the
bishop for some reason. Perhaps when you see her..."
"Perhaps," he said. "But I suspect she left him for the same reason she
would have murdered him if she was capable of murder. To get his attention."
He sipped his wine and smiled reminiscently. "Of course it isn't really
amusing, or shouldn't be, I suppose, but my brother Geoffrey once said that
father died to get away from her."
"What?" It was so alien a concept to me that I couldn't assimilate what
Geoffrey had meant.
"What he meant was that she was so great a burden even on a man like our
father -- who, by the way, I barely knew, so I have only Geoff's and
Suzannah's word for what he was like -- that she was so great a burden on
him that dying was the only way he could escape the back-breaking
responsibility of being her husband. It wasn't really that funny, though at
the time we laughed. I wonder what he thought would become of us," he added
in that strange, distracted manner he often displayed when something
troubled him.
I decided that it was time to change the subject. "Well, I know that unless
someone does something about your hair, you will come to a bad end, my lad.
And as I hold out no hope of getting you to a barber any time soon, I am
going to trim it for you."
Romney's expression went from troubled to terrified. "Oh God, no, Fitz!"
"Oh yes. Now hold still." I went to fetch a pair of scissors, a comb, and a
towel. When I returned he was wearing his bowler. "Take that off and
behave."
"You're a hard man."
"I'm tired of you looking like a street Arab." I wrapped the towel about his
shoulders and combed the tangles out.
"You said you liked it long," he reminded me. "Said it made me look, and I
quote: 'fey.'"
"You have gone beyond fey, my love, and are pushing the boundaries of
girlish," I lied. Rom had long ago passed the point of ever looking girlish
again. "And as you know I find all things girlish less than alluring."
"We can't have that, but don't you think that it could wait until I could
find time to get to the barber?"
"No, I do not. Unless you propose to begin wearing dotted Swiss and carrying
a parasol, I think a trim is in order." What I didn't say was that he was
beginning to look like some of the more effeminate members of my old set, a
look I actively disliked. There was a fine line between puckish and Wildean
aesthete, and I was determined to keep Rom on the side I preferred. Besides,
we needed a distraction just then.