The Burial Plot by Elizabeth Macneal
From the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Doll Factory, The Burial Plot is an unstoppable historical thriller about murder, manipulation, and a young woman trying to wrestle power from the hands of a dangerous man. But he’s always one step ahead . . .
London, 1839. Where the cemeteries are full and there is money to be made in death, Bonnie and Crawford lead a life of trickery, surviving off ill-gotten coin and nefarious schemes. But one hot evening, their luck runs out. A man lies in a pool of blood at Bonnie’s feet and now she needs to disappear.
Crawford secures her a position as lady’s maid in a grand house on the Thames, still deep in mourning for its late mistress. As Bonnie comes to understand this family – the eccentric Mr Moncrieff, obsessively drawing mausoleums grand enough for his dead wife, and their peculiar daughter Cissie, scribbling imaginary love letters to herself from the mysterious Lord Duggan – she begins to question what really happened to Mrs Moncrieff and whether her own presence here was planned from the beginning.
Because Crawford is watching, and perhaps he is plotting his greatest trick yet . . .
My Review
This is no reflection on the book, but I found it quite stressful to listen to at times. It’s because of Crawford. I want to hide behind the sofa. His plotting is just too awful. And it only gets worse. Is there no end to his scheming?
One of my favourite things about the book is the characters. First of all we have Bonnie, who has run away from her comfortable home to avoid being married off to a creepy man old enough to be her father. She goes to London where she meets Crawford, handsome and charming, he coerces her into doing his bidding, as he does his friend Rex (whose interest in Crawford is somewhat unhealthy). In fact they are little more than a couple of con artists, but Crawford has set his sights on a much higher ambition.
Poor naive Bonnie! Once in Crawford’s clutches, her intense love for him, together with being told she could go to prison for things he makes her believe she has done, and she’s hooked. And he has a plan. She is to become a lady’s maid at Endellion, a grand house on the Thames. She will take care of Cissie, a troubled girl who has recently lost her mother, and daughter of Aubrey Moncrieff, the master of the house.
But is that all Crawford has up his sleeve? Oh there is so much more to come and the twists arrive thick and fast, till you are out of breath with the suspense.
There is a fascination with cemeteries in the book, and it is central to the plot. Aubrey is obsessed with building a mausoleum for his late wife, but where will this lead. And Bonnie, now firmly ensconced in Endellion with her ‘brother’ Crawford, has plans of her own.
I loved this book. Gothic mystery is my favourite genre at the moment and The Burial Plot is a perfect example.
About the Author
Elizabeth Macneal was born in Edinburgh and now lives in East London. She is a writer and potter and works from a small studio at the bottom of her garden. She read English Literature at Oxford University, before working in the City for several years. In 2017, she completed the Creative Writing MA at UEA in 2017 where she was awarded the Malcolm Bradbury scholarship.
The Doll Factory, Elizabeth’s debut novel, won the Caledonia Noel Award 2018. It will be published in twenty-eight languages and TV rights have sold to Buccaneer Media.
