Paul Alan Fahey's "Weep Not for the Past" Is A Mystery Wrapped In History

Murder is easy if no one suspects you. – Agatha Christie

World War II is still going strong in Europe, and Leslie Atwater is still missing his lover Edward, though now for a very different reason than in Bomber’s Moon, the book that introduced Leslie, Edward, his cousin Caroline, as well as a cast of role players who each added personal tension to the already tumultuous landscape of a war-torn London.

Edward is on assignment in Africa, attempting to help reinstate the deposed Ethiopian Emperor Haile Salassie to power, while Leslie and Caroline are safely ensconced in the countryside, far from the danger of the German bombs that threaten to decimate an already crippled cityscape, but that doesn’t mean they’re far from peril of a different variety.

There is danger afoot in Weep Not for the Past, a cozy little cottage mystery that appears sedate on the surface but soon proves to be anything but when Leslie meets and befriends Evangeline Blake, wife to Hollis Blake, who works for the Ministry of Defense and is harboring a secret that may very well have driven his wife to drastic measures. Is it a tragic accident or murder most foul? Is it a wife on the brink, or is it a husband who is attempting to cover up his past that provides the motive for a crime? Those are the question that Leslie is determined to find the answers to, though finding the answers may not lead to justice.

Paul Alan Fahey has penned a short scene sliced from the whole cloth of the Bomber’s Moon series, with the very genteel English feel of a PBS Masterpiece Mystery, a diverting little story with a bit of amateur sleuthing which shows that even while there was indeed a war going on, life could continue to throw about its share of twists and turns amidst the effort to hold on to some semblance of normalcy and to keep the home fires burning.

Reviewed by: Lisa

You can buy Weep Not for the Past here: