Review - Unnatural Ends by Christopher Huang
I received a free review copy from NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
Christopher Huang’s new historical mystery Unnatural Ends caught me by surprise and kept me guessing. Set in the early 1920’s, this novel centers around the mystery of Sir Lawrence Linwood’s death. His last request sets his three adult children on a quest to solve his murder, much to the chagrin of the local police.
The characters that Huang has created are intricate and interesting. The three adopted Linwood siblings—Alan, Roger, and Caroline—are very different from each other, though they all grew up under the thumb of Sir Lawrence. They each take a different path to attempt to solve the mystery, and they are each led into unexpected places. It doesn’t take long before their investigations lead further and further into the past as they realize that their own mysterious origins have some bearing on the current mystery. Lady Linwood is a mysterious character in her own right, and though she seems the most likely to have some of the answers, she also is the least likely to elucidate.
This story is written from multiple points of view. We get to see scenes from the eyes of most of the story’s characters—even more minor characters—and we see different time periods. This structure gets rather convoluted, and at times I felt a bit lost as to when and where I was as an observer. Even within the present timeline, each sibling is involved in their own investigations and the events we see from one person’s point of view are not necessarily happening at the same time as what we’ve just seen from someone else’s point of view.
The mystery at play in the novel is complex. As the story progresses, suspicion is cast far and wide, relationships grow more and more complicated, and even unseen characters become important. The culmination of this, and the solution to the mystery, was satisfying and surprising. That said, some of the characters’ schemes and machinations felt too elaborate and began to feel unbelievable.
Overall, I enjoyed this book and think it is a great addition to the genre of period murder mysteries. Unnatural Ends comes out on June 20, 2023.
