Bones of the Buried

Lord Edward Corinth & Verity Browne #2

by David Roberts

A murder mystery featuring Lord Edward Corinth and Verity Browne.

After six months in New York, Lord Edward returns to London only for his old sparring partner, Verity Browne, to convince him to investigate a murder in Madrid. Her lover, David Griffith-Jones, has been convicted for the murder of a fellow Communist Party member and is set to face a firing squad.

Against all odds, Edward clears David's name and heads back to England. Here, Edward discovers another murder, surprisingly connected to the murder back in Spain. And it isn't too long before a third mysterious murder comes to light...

Edward and Verity join forces once again in search of the truth. But danger is all around them, and there is no guarantee that justice will be served and the murders avenged...

Praise for David Roberts:
'A classic murder mystery [...] and a most engaging pair of amateur sleuths' Charles Osborne, author of The Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie

'A gripping, richly satisfying whodunit with finely observed characters, sparkling with insouciance and stinging menace' Peter James

'A really well-crafted and charming mystery story' Daily Mail

'A perfect example of golden-age mystery traditions with the cobwebs swept away' Guardian

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Crime, Historical Mystery, Historical, Cozy Mystery

210 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 18, 2002

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
David Roberts is an English editor and novelist.
Roberts worked for several years as a book editor at Chatto and Windus, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, and Michael O'Mara Books. Since 2000 he has been a full-time writer, best known for a series of crime novels set during the late 1930s, and featuring the joint adventures of Lord Edward Corinth and Verity Browne. The novels use actual historical events as a backdrop and there is an Author's Note at the back of the books briefly outlining what happened to the historical characters subsequently.
Publishers Weekly has described his novels as "well-researched" and "first-rate fun".

Reviews

[James Rivett · Rating 2 out of 5]

Perhaps 2 stars is too harsh, so add an extra tickle to that score and bump it up a smidge.
Bones of the Buried was not dreadful it just wasn't good enough. Roberts clearly had a sound idea and planned a few red herrings, but the whole thing became so convoluted and laborious. It just tried too hard to be unnecessarily clever.
Besides all the jumbled mess of coincidence and motive, the mixed love stories or sexual shenanigans were ludicrous. It was not dramatic or romantic tension it was shallow people passing time in meaningless relationships and pretending it was something grand and beautiful.

[Deirdre · Rating 1 out of 5]

Nah, bae.

The characters were universally unpleasant and uninteresting, the dialogue was wooden, and the relationships (particularly the romantic relationships) unrealistic. Also the themes and tension had no subtlety about them. I felt like I was constantly being bashed over the head with how confused and attracted Corinth and Verity were about and toward each other. Furthermore, I didn't agree with anyone's values and, what is more important, they were not compelling. I can read books about people who have different values from mine as long as they are interesting and understandable, but this one didn't work for me. Also the title was a non sequitur.

Much disappoint, very distress.

[Alison · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lord Edward Corinth returns from six months in New York, single once more after his love affair with Lord Weaver's daughter fizzled out. No sooner is he home than Verity Browne comes knocking, she has been in Spain reporting on the fight between the Republic and the fascists with her on-again, off-again boyfriend and Communist Party leader David Griffith-Jones but David has been arrested and convicted of murdering fellow communist Godfrey Tilney, who coincidentally was at Eton with Edward. Verity has come to beg Edward to come to Madrid and help clear David's name. Meanwhile, Basil Thoroughgood from the Foreign Office asks Edward to extend an offer to David, the FO will help him if he agrees to pass on information to them, aka spy.

Soon the body count is mounting, including another fellow Old Etonian, who also happened to be the father of Edward's nephew's best friend. Edward can't help but feel that the deaths of several Old Etonians must have a connection and he is determined to discover the truth.

I think I can only echo others' reviews. I didn't realise that one of the characters was a very thinly veiled Ernest Hemingway (mainly because I have zero interest in him), but it does explain why the character featured so heavily.

I felt that the tension was missing because of the prologue which have the link between the victims and then it was a case of dangling one red herring after another as to the identity of the murderer(s). Also, I feel that the only reason we know the answer is because the murderer(s) confessed, otherwise it could have been another red herring.

Also, both Edward and Verity are becoming unlikeable characters. Apparently he is in love with Verity, despite having lived in New York for six months with another woman, thought he was in love with a second woman, and then had a sexual relationship with a third woman, to pass the time. Indeed, while watching a production of Love's Labour Lost he muses that he could never be celibate for three years in the pursuit of love. Verity on the other hand appears to be easily led and treated as a propaganda and sexual favours machine by David, whilst leaning on Edward and then complaining about him.

I enjoy the historical details about the murky politics on left and right, but I'm not sure how much longer I will continue with the series.

Read on my Kindle Unlimited subscription.

[Tom Ruffles · Rating 2 out of 5]

(This is a joint review of Sweet Poison and Bones of the Buried)

Sweet Poison

Take a large helping of Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane, add a little Albert Campion, a dash of Roderick Alleyn and a sprinkling of The Remains of the Day, and you have the perfect recipe for David Roberts’ debut novel Sweet Poison. Set in 1935, it features a dashing yet sensitive adventurer and man-about-town Lord Edward Corinth and his unlikely collaboration with a card-carrying but strangely alluring Communist, Miss Verity Browne. But Ned isn’t slumming it by any means: Verity is actually, despite her proletarian-oriented political beliefs, from the upper-middle drawer (she drives a Morgan, after all) so it isn’t as if Edward is attracted to a factory worker. Not that it would matter because despite his aristocratic origins, he is surprisingly liberal in his views. In fact more so than his gentleman’s gentleman, who is the really hidebound one.

The plot concerns the efforts of Edward’s older brother, the Duke of Mersham, to broker peace talks between influential figures in England and Germany in order to avert another war. Unfortunately his plans are scuppered when a distinguished elderly general is poisoned at one of his intimate gatherings - but was it suicide or murder? After a slow start setting up the characters and the weekend house part at which this dreadful event occurs, the novel follows Edward and Vcrity interrogating suspects as the threads lead them into ever-murkier waters, including the London underworld. The two bond, but Edward is still capable of casting his eye elsewhere, and Verity has personal issues with a senior Party comrade, so the path of true love – or even working out precisely what their relationship is, where the practical element of the investigation stops and something else starts – will, you can be sure, not be a smooth one.

There are rather a lot of coincidences to oil the plot, but what is quite refreshing is that Edward and Verity do not put the pieces together for a final denouement, and as Edward ruefully concedes, if only to himself as everything falls into place, his deductions were inaccurate and he was behind developments every step of the way. While there is no Gosford Park-style bitchiness, it is nice to see a bit of real life intrude, even if sketchily, into the normally hermetic world of the detective story in the form of 1930s politics and the long shadows which the Great War cast over the period. There is also more sex and drugs than you would expect to find in a Golden Age novel, and more humour as well. Sweet Poison ends with a possible rival to Verity for Edward’s affections, but we know deep down there is much more mileage in Edward’s relationship with Verity, even if she is in a different country at the conclusion. Things may be helped along if at some point Verity becomes a murder suspect, as happened in the case of both Wimsey and Alleyn. One feels a sequel coming.

And here it is.

Bones of the Buried

Set six months later, in 1936, the action becomes international, shuttling between England – mainly Eton – and Spain, with civil war looming menacingly on the horizon. To the detective models Roberts has already used he has added a dash of Eric Ambler and Graham Greene. Verity, working as a foreign correspondent, comes back to England from Spain to urge Edward to return with her to save her Stalinist lover, sentenced to death for murder. It is a much more complex, and satisfying, novel than its predecessor. Roberts has hit his stride, and apart from some awkward references back to the first book, which will mean little if you haven’t read it, and are pointless if you have, has a faster pace. As in the first novel Edward shows himself to be a less than stellar detective, and while he gets there in the end, there is no satisfying Agatha Christie-style denouement.

The Spanish political situation is a backdrop to the detection and while it is inevitably simplified (this isn’t Homage to Catalonia), Bones does acknowledge that the political situation of the period was not a straightforward left against right. The characterisation is more rounded and plotting is tighter than in Sweet Poison, even if there is still a reliance on coincidence, though, tongue-in-cheek, Roberts has Edward say that he doesn’t believe in them. There is also more sex than in the average Dorothy L. Sayers. Some of this is between Verity and a fictionalised version of Ernest Hemingway, though Hemingway was not in Spain in 1936. There are some anachronistic phrases, and a member of the Communist Party would have referred not to Trotskyists but to Trotskyites, but Roberts does maintain a satisfying period ambience.

The depiction of the association between Edward and Verity is not one of a traditional romantic development. They have a complicated relationship and there is no sense that their getting together is inevitable. In fact, ’V’ is even more shrill in this outing than in the previous one, and for some readers she may cross the dividing line between feisty independence and being selfishly annoying. It is hard to work out what Edward sees in her, other than the negative reason that she is utterly unlike the bland debs who normally throw themselves at him. He might be enlightened, but in aristocratic 1930s terms his tolerant, if anguished, attitude to Verity’s chaotic emotional life just does not ring true. As before, the novel ends with Edward and Verity apart, with scope for a further instalment; in fact the series has now concluded in 1939 with ten novels charting the pair’s will-they-won‘t-they relationship among a rising body count, set against the ever-darkening clouds of war.

[Norman Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, I didn't particularly like any of the characters except for Hester and Fenton, and the whole upper-class vs Communist party member tension seemed pretty laboured, and the plot wasn't very credible, and ... in sum, not my cuppa tea, thenk you!

[Margaret · Rating 3 out of 5]

The mystery is good but the politics are very serious and grim. There is a lot of detail about Communism and Facism and the Spanish Civil War. It gave the book a very serious tone and was not what I was expectingis

[Jenny Wenham · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didnt grab me. Far too much character development and far too little plot in the first 50 pages. Gave it away and moved on to something else.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. I really like this series. Unlike many mystery series set in the 1930s, it deals directly with the political tensions of the times, and in a thoughtful way. Edward and Verity are interesting, complex characters, and I enjoy watching them (and their relationship) develop over time. But the author’s dreamy, roseate view of Eton in those days is quite a contrast to Julian Mitchell’s scathing treatment of it in his play and film Another Country!

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here's another I discovered through a collection of knitting patterns (!!); this is the second book I've read in the series. I like the main characters, although they can be a little infuriating (like real people, I suppose). I really enjoyed the setting of this book (in Spain in the 1930s, right at the beginning of the civil war). Unlike some reviewers, I like the inclusion of the politics.

I wasn't sure why there was a character that was so obviously Ernest Hemingway, but identified by another name. Maybe his literary estate comes down hard on appropriations of his persona/character? (Only sort of kidding.) Anyway, it seemed disingenuous to give an enormous, hairy, hard-drinking, philandering WWI ambulance driver novelist who writes about game hunting in Africa and loves bull fighting another name.

I wasn't as crazy about the ending of this one; it did seem a bit muddled, but maybe that was intentional. I'll definitely be reading more of this series, though. I can't wait to see if Verity falls out of love with communism.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the second of the Edward Corinth and Verity Brown series. it has promise because it involves history and excitement but I don't really care for either of the main characters. Verity is a communist but we never really see why she believes what she believes and that makes her unbelievable. Edward wants more out of life but doesn't do anything to change his lifestyle.

Edward proclaims a love for Verity who would and did throw him to the wolves and yet he continues to have a passion for her which he assuages with other women. As you can see, neither of these characters are that admirable. It seems to be that in both the first book and this one, the murderers go free because of the 'can't prove anything' weakness in the plot.

I wanted to like this series but I was pretty discouraged by the ending of Bones of the Buried.
The best parts are the titles which come from Shakespearean quotes.

[Debbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the second in the series, but the first I've read. There is a conservatism to Edward which seems accurate to the time. I just can't decide if he shares the author's views. Verity is okay some of the time and sometimes a know it all prig with too high an idea of herself. This could end up like Anne Perry's Monk series where I quit reading them because, although I liked him I found her to be a pain in the ass. But, back to Lord Edward and Verity. The murders, and there are four of them at least,plus a few additional beating ups are all over the place and the motive of some of the characters is suspect (and not in a good way). I'll try number one in the series and see how that goes.

[Jane · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Development of the character which mirrored Hemingway was somehow offputting. Was it in any way historically correct or was so inaccurate as to force another name to it. "Papa" Belasco indeed! However the presentation of the workings of the communists in Spain against the fascists each positioning for ruthless power leading to civil war was intriguing, but again left me wondering how off it was. Will lead me to research further. Verity Brown as a character was the prototype female dimwit, thereby elevating the male character in a piggish was, so to speak.

[Trish · Rating 1 out of 5]

The combination of the two main characters definitely isn't working for me. Far too much politics and not enough actual plot, and what plot there is, the main characters get wrong again the first time. Admittedly the lead-up to the Spanish Civil War is an interesting backdrop, but it's about the only thing holding my interest. And to cap it all, there isn't even a satisfying ending.

[Cece · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set during the Spanish Civil War, but the characters are mostly British and American ex-pats. As far as I know, historically accurate, although the politics of that time and that place were, at best, muddled.

[Kirsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm loving this series...the 2 detectives are sometimes naïve, smart, clever and imperfect humans. This is set against the Spanish Civil War beginnings as loyalties are played against each other and old connections pop up.

[Fernando Troyano · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it, but is there something lacking in there?
Verity's character kind of get's on my nerves. "Let's pick what we like from each side". I wanna play communist, but I'll tell you about it while we dine in the savoy or something.
Anyway, the plot is good, and the story catches.

[Gail · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoy the adventures Edward Corinth and Verity Browne, although the ending in this one was a bit muddled. I like my mysteries with neat, tidy endings. After all, this a novel, not real life.

[Carol Kerry-Green · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good mystery, but still not sure about Edward and Verity, I sometimes want to bang their heads together!!

[Mary Newcomb]

Eton, Spain and London all form the backdrop to this very confusing tale of revenge and passion.

[Kathleen Freeman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book more than the first in the series.