CHALICE OF DARKNESS

Has an overconfident thief met his match in a haunted mansion?

In the early years of the 20th century, grandiloquent actor Jack Fitzglen heads a mediocre theatrical family, abetted by his adoring dresser, Augustus Pocket. When theatrical engagements are meager, Mr. Jack likes to augment the family’s income with some artful thievery, a sideline that fills Gus with trepidation, though not enough to make him refuse to assist his idol. Impersonations are such a key component of Mr. Jack’s heists that they’re almost better described as performances. His latest felonious obsession is a priceless relic called the Talisman Chalice, which carries a curse and is reportedly hidden somewhere in a Northumberland estate called Vallow Hall or in the ominous neighboring Bastle House. Rayne puts this plummy plot on a back burner to take the reader north and lay out complicated inheritance questions swirling around sincere, timorous Maude Vallow, who becomes the hapless heiress to these properties. The discovery of the corpse of a servant thought to have decamped only increases Maude’s anxiety It is in this forbidding atmosphere that the flamboyant Mr. Jack attempts to execute his plan. Rayne’s tale, a half-step away from the simmering suspense of her upscale Phineas Fox series and West/Flint ghost stories, feels delightfully unleashed from their milieu. She depicts hammy antihero Jack with relish, loads the last half of her bubbly, spooky yarn with lively set pieces like a suspicious fire, and ties her chalice to the dark fates of Richard II and Anne Boleyn.

Frightful fun with haunted history and a blustery thespian.