Someone is killing powerful men in London. These men are supposed to be untouchable and yet, someone is able to get close enough to murder them and vanish into the night. The only clues Inspector Henry Cutter and Sergeant Gideon Bliss have been able to turn up are clues the killer wanted them to find. Paraic O’Donnell’s chilling new novel, The Naming of the Birds, takes us deep into a secret that was supposed to be dead and buried. This book is the sequel to The House on Vesper Sands.
After an extended introduction set in 1872, which reveals a sinister school for orphans named only for birds, we jump ahead to 1894 to meet Inspector Cutter and Sergeant Bliss. The pair are very much an odd couple in the Scotland Yard of the 1890s. Cutter is a gruff man who gives off “too old for this shit” vibes while the much younger Bliss seems like he should be a vicar somewhere in the country. (He did study theology for a time.) Cutter is street-smart. Bliss is book smart. The only reason they’ve been partnered together, I think, is because Bliss is the only officer forgiving enough to put up with Cutter. Bliss takes notes and runs to keep up with his superior while Cutter follows his whims as much as the clues he finds.
Cutter is the man the Met call in for cases that need discreet handling. (For all his faults, Cutter knows how to keep his mouth shut when necessary.) So he is not surprised when a highly placed man, Sir Aneurin Considine, is found dead in his home, a fist clutched around a child’s finger bone. For most of the novel, Bliss has very little idea what’s going on. Fair play mystery readers may get annoyed with Cutter, who clearly knows more than he’s letting on. I’m usually a fair play reader but I was intrigued enough by the characters and that introduction to stick around and let the plot play out–especially once Bliss ropes in an old friend, Octavia Hillingdon, a journalist who knows her way around archives and documents. I found her investigative technique—looking for what’s missing as much as what’s there—very interesting, and her ability to brush off Cutter’s attempts to keep her safe very entertaining.
The Naming of the Birds is a wonderfully gothic and highly original historical mystery. There’s plenty of chases and fights to leaven scenes in which witnesses are questioned and documents read. What really makes this book shine are the vibrant characters who constantly defy expectations.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.