Eustacia Rose's life is beginning to return to normal: she is back teaching at UCL and her relationship with Matilde is blossoming. But when a man is found dead with a needle in his neck, that fragile peace begins to crumble. Eustacia finds a painting of herself with a syringe next to her neck and discovers that there are other people who seem to know more about the killing than they are letting on.
The threat around Eustacia only increases as a PhD student begins to stalk and harass her to gain access to her poisonous plant collection. After Eustacia continually refuses, he contacts a lab that is illegally selling synthetic plant toxins but turns up dead shortly after. As the body count rises, Eustacia has no choice but to investigate the deaths in earnest.
But murders aren't the only thing on her mind as interactions with a new detective cause tensions with Matilde that Eustacia has no idea how to resolve. What's more, run-ins with a mysterious white-haired women are making her recall long-buried memories. Eustacia must solve the mysteries of her past and this case if she wants to escape from this toxic situation unscathed.
Hell's Bells, Jill Johnson
The second novel in the Professor Eustacia Rose series, HELL'S BELLS is out, about and well worth reading. For those that haven't met up with this character before, her first outing was in the book DEVIL'S BREATH. The same elements are being explored again here, Rose's experience as a neurodivergent woman in a world not designed to be easy to navigate, full of personal interactions, a relationship that she really values, but doesn't know how to say it, and a return to work as a professor with students, and a research lab and all that brings with it.
If you've not read the earlier novel, then Rose is a Professor of Botanical Toxicology, whose particular interest, some might say obsession, is with obscure, poisonous plants. As with the earlier novel, this knowledge puts her partly in the role of expert, partly suspect when a man is found dead on the streets, with a needle in his neck. Then an increasingly erratic and dangerous young student who has been harassing and stalking Rose, is found dead, after buying illegal synthetic plant toxins, the likes of which he believed Rose was denying him access to, and she's right in the middle of a big mess that, of course, she'll have to resolve. Solving puzzles, understanding connections, setting things in order is exactly what Professor Eustacia Rose yearns to do, and in this case, there's a portrait painted with a hidden needle poised beside her neck to give her that extra bit of impetus. Although when it comes to intimate personal relationships she's lost and way out of her depth. Thank goodness for her kindly elderly neighbour and friend, deliverer of both impetus and potential solutions. Meanwhile the final mystery is another elderly white-haired woman that is triggering some very weird memories.
As with the first novel, Johnson writes her character in a matter-of-fact manner. She's observational, often mildly confused, and possessed of profound one-track mindedness. Which makes the question mark over her relationship with Matilde (who readers meet in the first novel), a distraction, until she's aware that it can no longer be such and it's time to make some moves. Guided by her gentle, but firm neighbour who it turns out is quite good friends with Matilde, again post events in the first novel.
If push comes to shove, HELL'S BELLS probably would stand alone, but really it would be a much better experience to read this series in order. Getting to know Professor Eustacia Rose is the key to understanding how the flow of these investigations work, why she spends so much time on her roof with now, just a telescope and a few easy to care for plants, and what's she's lost. Her beloved father dead, her mother vanished when she was a child, her life's purpose taking a battering in both novels, Professor Rose is a very relatable woman, with foibles, eccentricities and heaps of personal twitches, yet she's liked, even loved by those closest to her. If she can just work out what that means.