The Amber Shadows

Starred review from June 19, 2017
Honey Deschamps, the heroine of this richly imagined WWII-era thriller from Ribchester (The Hourglass Factory), serves the war effort by typing decrypted German messages at England’s Bletchley Park. Walking in the blackout one night, she’s startled to encounter a stranger, Felix Plaidstow, who hands her a package he says was misdelivered to his intelligence unit at Bletchley. The parcel, postmarked in Nazi-controlled Leningrad and holding pieces of amber marked with mysterious letters, is followed by similar mailings. Honey is baffled until she thinks of her artistic Russian father, Ivan Korichnev, who left the family just before she was born and whom she knows about only from her brother, Dickie. Ivan became the curator of the Catherine Palace, whose Amber Room has been looted by the Nazis. Is he reaching out, or are Bletchley authorities testing her? When Dickie is murdered and Honey’s attraction to Felix deepens, Honey must disentangle love from danger, falsity from truth. Ribchester movingly reflects on trust, illusion, and the stories that connect us to our pasts. Agent: David Forrer, Inkwell Management.

Starred review from May 15, 2017
Mysterious parcels that may connect a British World War II typist with her past make a dangerous gift.Honey Deschamps nearly stays for a third viewing of Suspicion at Bletchley's local cinema to keep her mind off ration coupons, her tedious shifts of typing intercepted messages into a code-breaking machine at the Park, and the universal, necessary blackout material that makes the nighttime even darker. But instead she heads back to her bleak billet, where Felix Plaidstow, a stranger with a greyhound named Nijinksy, hands her a package. She gets a first glimpse into a fairy-tale world when she unwraps the parcel with a Leningrad postmark and finds a square of what looks like amber. After the arrival of two more packages, each containing another panel, Honey discovers a coded message carved in the amber. She believes both message and amber are from the father she never knew, a Russian musician and composer--at least according to Honey's brother, Dickie. A final package containing a model of a firebird, representing ballet-dancing Dickie's beloved legend, seems to support Honey's theory. In addition to requesting help from her friend and colleague Moira Draper, a brilliant mathematician who made a breakthrough in the important decrypting work at the Park, Honey sends a coded message of her own to Dickie. Unnerving events at Bletchley--being watched and reported on, a supervisor's assurance that he'll personally shoot anyone betraying the Park's secrets, a glimpse behind the blackout at a strange banquet, Moira's sudden disappearance--add to Honey's fear that she's in over her head. She can't discuss things even with Felix, who seems to be there when she needs him, whether she's being tested for loyalty or given a key to her true heritage in the form of a smuggled treasure. After a shattering murder and a devastating discovery, the darkness of Bletchley threatens to envelop her altogether. Ribchester (The Hourglass Factory, 2016) convincingly re-creates wartime life and the enclosed world of code-breaking and plays out the suspense in a Hitchcock homage almost worthy of the master.

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Starred review from August 1, 2017

It's 1942, and Honey Deschamps is doing her part for the war effort by transcribing decrypted German messages at Bletchley Park, England, when she's visited by Felix Plaidstow, who claims to be an intelligence officer. He delivers a package postmarked from occupied Leningrad, Russia, containing a small piece of amber. Then more oddly coded packages begin to arrive; is her loyalty being tested or are the parcels connected to Honey's Russian father, a curator at the Catherine Palace in Leningrad and home of the famous Amber Room, now endangered by the Nazi invasion? When her brother Dickie is murdered and her colleague Moira suddenly disappears, Honey must unravel the truth and determine whom she can trust. VERDICT This sophomore effort by the author of The Hourglass Factory is a fascinating historical mystery that explores issues of secrecy, trust, and families but never impedes the element of almost Hitchcockian suspense. A sure-bet for fans of the PBS series The Bletchley Circle, Susan Elia MacNeal's "Maggie Hope" series, and Rhys Bowen's In Farleigh Field.--ACT

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2017

It's 1942, and Honey Deschamps is doing her part for the war effort by transcribing decrypted German messages at Bletchley Park, England, when she's visited by Felix Plaidstow, who claims to be an intelligence officer. He delivers a package postmarked from occupied Leningrad, Russia, containing a small piece of amber. Then more oddly coded packages begin to arrive; is her loyalty being tested or are the parcels connected to Honey's Russian father, a curator at the Catherine Palace in Leningrad and home of the famous Amber Room, now endangered by the Nazi invasion? When her brother Dickie is murdered and her colleague Moira suddenly disappears, Honey must unravel the truth and determine whom she can trust. VERDICT This sophomore effort by the author of The Hourglass Factory is a fascinating historical mystery that explores issues of secrecy, trust, and families but never impedes the element of almost Hitchcockian suspense. A sure-bet for fans of the PBS series The Bletchley Circle, Susan Elia MacNeal's "Maggie Hope" series, and Rhys Bowen's In Farleigh Field.--ACT

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.