FOOL'S GOLD by Jane Jakeman, my second Lord Ambrose Malfine historical mystery of 1830's England , continues in the same vein of the aristocratic recluse’s adventures – this time confronting a watershed moment in his life.

The love of his solitary heart, Elizabeth Anstruther, who has resided with him at his family estate of Malfine, is leaving.  Ambrose asked for her hand in marriage; but she believed him not ready to break free of the solitary existence that permitted him the liberty of answering whenever adventure called.

They were two different types of people, from different classes of life’s social spectrum.  She loved him dearly, and though he told her he was prepared to take the life-altering step marriage would bring, she still left Malfine, taking employment at Jesmond Place , thirty miles to the west.

Not a happy place, she writes Ambrose, Elizabeth served as a companion to the lonely young woman Lady Clara Jesmond.  There is a dutiful housekeeper, Mrs. Romey, and there is a young doctor, John Keosoe, who attends to the health of Lady Jesmond’s much-older husband, Sir Anthony, but as her husband neglects her, showing his face little beyond the gathering of meals (attending to whatever work his privacy demanded) and the house is a despairing place to suffer (her attempts to enliven the dinner table with conversation goes nowhere) Elizabeth's company becomes imperative to retaining any semblance of normalcy.

When Dr. Kelsoe is found dead in his bedroom, that sense of normalcy morphs into a matter for absolute safety -- at least to Elizabeth , as such is the reasoning she offers Ambrose for not leaving Lady Jesmond's side.  For though the doctor's death is ruled a suicide, she cannot fathom how one could kill themselves by prussic acid, a poison eliciting a most sudden and violent reaction, and be found quietly undisturbed, lying peaceful across his bed, while the top of the poison bottle is securely affixed.

Lord Ambrose confirms this reaction with his friend, Dr. Murdoch Sandys, and sets off, in answers to Elizabeth 's plea to come to her, for Jesmond Place .

While there at her side, he experiences the boisterous arrival of Sir Anthony's obnoxious only son, Cyriak.  His presence is an odd mixture into the near-morose disposition of Jesmond Place , and his mysterious departure is even more striking, as he suffers death after falling from his horse and being dragged, headfirst, across the family landscape.

However, what is even odder is Cyriak Jesmond dies not from the accident with the horse; he dies by the ingestion of prussic acid - the same poison to befall Dr. Kelsoe.

Two deaths, widely unrelated in manner of death, as well as temperament of the two men killed, with the only constant being the agent through which death struck - the prussic acid.  Who would be next in this mad intrusion of death, randomly killing whomever?  When no motive was known, and no connection existed between the victims, anyone could become death’s next prey.  

As with THE EGYPTIAN COFFIN, my introduction to Lord Ambrose Malfine, this is a character part Sherlock Holmes, with his art of subtle deduction and wealth of personal knowledge, and part James Bond, with his bold fortitude in facing down his enemies and his urbane appeal in romance of the ladies.  FOOL’S GOLD is a tale worthy of this natural wit and aplomb. It pertains to a very specific set of circumstances, from which the plot builds (and the murders result) to grow into a pertinent thematic undercurrent for what is really important in life.  True gold?  Or FOOL’S GOLD?