Scribner’s (first), 1995
Operatic in the dramatic colors and shadows of their relationships, Julia Swann’s family takes its style from its matriarch, bel canto soprano Dame Caroline Stowe, rather than from Sir Gerald Asherton, Dame Caroline’s husband and Julia’s father, or from Julia herself, a reclusive artist living with her parents rather than with her flamboyant, unfaithful, erratic husband Con. When Connor Swann’s body is pulled from the stream near his parents-in-law’s home, Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and Sergeant Gemma James are sent by Scotland Yard to investigate his death, their presence justified by the marks of violence on Swann’s body, and the illustriousness of his connections. Ironically, this death echoes an earlier tragedy, the drowning of Julia’s younger brother years before. It makes for a lively conclusion, but calls for a substantial suspension of disbelief, that Kincaid, who has arranged a get-all-the-suspects-together-in-the-living-room meeting to confront the person he believes is the murderer, only identifies the killer correctly during that meeting, when a person he has not hitherto suspected moves, and is literally seen in a new way. (Jeanne M Jacobson)
Originally published in Issue # 135 – January/February 1995
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