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The Seance Society by Michael Nethercott

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This one is a 3.5 star read for me because it didn't feel particularly grounded in its time period. Without O'Nelligan's musical references it's easy to forget this is set in the late 1950s. Lee Plunkett is a reluctant PI, having inherited the job from his former policeman turned PI father. How he and O'Nelligan hooked up we don't know but O'Nelligan is an older mentor slash Watson type. Into this mix is Audrey Lee's long time finance who is getting tired of waiting for him to pull the trigger on that wedding date.

O'Nelligan brings the case to Lee, Trexlar Lloyd is a wealthy spiritualist and inventor who claims to have built a machine, the Spectricator to talk to ghosts but instead it electrocutes him and the Detective Agnelli isn't sure that the coroner is right that it an accident especially since Dr. Emmitt was also a friend/client of Trex's.

The household is filled with odd characters, Constanza Lloyd, his young spanish wife now widow who must return to Spain if she wants to inherit, the unlikeable Dr. Kemple who is in the ghost business too, Trowbridge the butler, Rast the groundskeeper, Doris the secretary/ right hand woman, Sassafras a former speakeasy owner Mae West type, young cousins Betty and Kate who were serving girls, Mrs. Mapes a client who also sees ghosts, a married couple looking for their son who died in WWII and Mrs Perris the cook.

Was Trex killed was it an accident and if he was killed why? I guessed the first half of the equation pretty early on and the final end was a bit harder as all of them had a good motive and opportunity.

I did like the characters and the mystery well enough. I just wish the setting had been hammered home a bit better.



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