Mystery of the Moving Image (Snow and Winter book 3) by C.S. Poe

[Ulysses]

Mystery of the Moving Image (Snow and Winter 3)
C.S. Poe
Published by Emporium Press, 2018 and 2020
Five stars

I love this series, largely because of C.S. Poe’s articulate, wry writing, but also because her sense of place if vivid and believable; and her characters are weird enough to be interesting without tipping over into idiotic.

Sebastian Snow is an antique dealer—but a very specific kind of antiques (given that I am a decorative arts curator, and thus by definition into antiques professionally). Sebastian is drawn to the odd and the technically esoteric. This is good, because the centerpiece of this mystery is a kinetoscope, a device patented by Thomas Edison’s vast company in the late 19th century—that transition time between still photography and modern movies. This also strikes close to home for me, since I work and live within minutes of the Edison factory in West Orange, NJ, and have learned a lot about his life, his inventions, and his mansion, Glenmont. Edison is a legend, but around here, he’s also local.

Sebastian and his redhaired, older, detective boyfriend, Calvin Winter, have moved in together. Or, at least they trying to. The arrival of a kinetoscope in a massive crate interrupts the routine at Sebastian’s Emporium, and the normality devolves rapidly from there. What starts out as a murder recorded on film in the 1890s turns into a very real murder in the 2010s. Sebastian once again is dragged—semi-reluctantly—into a strange, complicated, and ultimately violent mystery that theatens (once again) to threaten Sebastian’s happiness.

What warms me particularly about Poe’s work in this series is the ongoing character development of the irritating-yet-smart Sebastian, as he faces up to his own truth and realizes that he owes more than just fidelity to the war-damaged Winter. Calvin is a special character, but by this book he’s become the stronger of the two men, and his love for Sebastian runs like a comforting thread through even Sebastian’s most irritating moments.

I’ve already started the last book in the series, because I didn’t want to let these guys go.