The Winter List
By S.G. MacLean.
“Dear S.G. Maclean,” Damian Seeker started writing. Bags I be the main character, snapped Anne Winter before Seeker could even suggest a new adventure for a certain rugged Puritan chap living in the American wilderness. “Dear Damian,” wrote S.G. MacLean, “I’m afraid Anne Winter baggsied… bagsied… First come, first served.”
Roger L’Estrange, the 17th-century pamphleteer, is putting it about that Damian Seeker was the man who snicked off Charles I’s head, and while Charles II is inclined to forgive, he’s not inclined to forgive the people who had a direct hand in his dad’s death. Some more disreputable sorts such as L’Estrange are using this for their own vindictive ends, and - for want of Aphra Behn, who was out of town on “business”, - he has Anne Winter, accompanied by her sidekick, Griselda Duncan, go to York in search of evidence of Damian Seeker’s whereabouts.
Anne is soon reunited with Seeker’s daughter, Manon, and her husband, Lawrence Ingolby, and her old friend, Sir Thomas Faithly. She gets Griselda embedded in Ingolby’s household, and encrypted letters are soon uncovered. However, Griselda is a bit unnerved by the appearance of Faithly’s old friend, David Ogilvie.
Meanwhile, there are strange doings in York such as the murder of William Briar, who had some plans on him for a house with some rather curious extras. Looks like a stonemason did it, but the most likely culprit dies from self-inflicted injuries, which also supply him with a convenient alibi.
The Duke of Buckingham, who is the Lord Lieutenant, and an old friend of Faithly and Ogilvie’s, turns up for a visit (“Don’t mind me.”)
Eventually, the real villain, and Briar’s killer, is exposed, and thinking to earn some extra Brownie points, he travels to the Americas to hunt Seeker down. Needless to say, it doesn’t go well. In other news, Griselda learns that Ogilvie’s business with her isn’t what she thought, and Anne Winter quietly overlooks Faithly’s dealings with Seeker (“Come up and see me sometime,” she murmurs sexily).
Apart from a brief cameo at the end, Seeker’s epistolary shadow merely lurks in the background. It’s the other characters who are the stars of the novel this time with cameos by the Duke of Buckingham and L’Estrange himself (in a fairly pointless episode in which he tries to abduct Manon Ingolby). Ingolby seems to stand in for Seeker, having a similar demeanour. Faithly (as far as I can recall) is now portrayed in a more favourable light. Anne Winter is supposed to be tracking Seeker down, but her heart never seems to be in it, and indeed, she warns the others of Manon’s attempted abduction; she also burns her bridge with L’Estrange and actively glosses over Faithly’s duplicity.
Madge Penmore, Ingolby’s uninvited housekeeper, and Griselda Duncan are decent secondary characters.
As for the plot, it feels a bit thin in comparison with the much more well delineated characters. The reader already knows where Seeker is. Anne’s relationship with him and Manon makes it seem entirely likely that she’s going to put the telescope to her blind eye and say, “I see no Seeker.” And this is more or less exactly what she does. There are other times (such as when Griselda pays Faithly a visit) the whole episode is unnecessarily dragged out. The cameos from various characters may further the plot with some Vital Information™, but the payoff seems slight in comparison with how it was delivered.
Is this the final episode in the Damian Seeker series, or does MacLean plan to set the last one in the Americas?
Overall, The Winter List is a decent read. As I said, the characters are well drawn, but the story itself could almost be split into a series of interlocking novellas in a single volume eventually leading to the real villain. Readers who are hoping for a story specifically starring Seeker are going to be disappointed… “But not by lots of hot, sexy Anne Winter,” said Anne with a coquettish expression on her face.