Review: Retreat from Nuala

Retreat from Nuala by Harriet Steel
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As time has gone on, Shanti de Silva, the police chief of Nuala has found that his two officers are quite capable of running the office on their own. Jane, his wife, is always interested in new ideas and travel. When the local parish hosts a Buddhist monk, Soma, to speak of his belief and his mountain monastery home, she is sufficiently curious to ask Shanti if they might visit there for a short vacation.

Checking first with his British superior, Archie, Shanti takes leave and they head to the lofty place in the mountains. She is looking forward to exploring the practices of meditation and yoga and he is looking forward to rest and relaxation with a few hikes in the cool mountain air.

Upon their arrival, after a challenging hour's hike they meet their fellow guests--a retired clergyman, Arthur, a flamboyant romance novelist, Madelaine and a young couple, Alec a student of Buddhist history and his wife, Belinda. Two monks are assigned to provide them all with whatever they may require, Anwan and Chatura, neither of which have much to do in the story but provide the dahl and water that appears to make up all the meals the visitors receive. The last person they meet is the older monk and head of the monastery, Gunananda.

Despite Janes purported interests in monastic life, very little is mentioned or described in the book, which is rather disappointing. The days are spent hiking to the lake farther up the mountain, sitting in the garden reading or doing crossword puzzles, eating their meals and interacting with each other the way traveling strangers do. Once, Shanti and Jane did attend one of the prayer times of the monks. This rather relaxed and almost boring time passes uneventfully until one morning when the librarian notices that an ancient and, perhaps valuable, manuscript disappears from its locked and hidden box.

At last, a mystery to liven things up and so Shanti and Jane start their search for the manuscript and its thief. So many possibilities, so much nefarious activity--which are true leads and which red herrings? Happily, this crime, unlike others that have taken place in this series, seems to be devoid of a bloody death or two along the way--well, seems may be the key word here. Still, it is an interesting story since the manuscript deals with some interesting questions--where did Christ spend his years between 12 and his 30's? Was he in Britain? Did Joseph of Arimathea spend time in Britain working among the miners of tin in Cornwall? Did he bring Jesus with him back and forth on his business trips? And what about that Virgin Birth of Mary's? Could she have gotten pregnant from a British Prince while she visited Britain with her uncle, Joseph? Hmmm, seems the manuscript would cause a bit of a stir were it to reach the outside world. So what does the thief intend to do with it?

As always, the culprit it found about twenty pages short of the book's ending and the character's stories are all sorted by then, too. And as always, getting to the solution is as much fun as one of Jane's crossword puzzles!

View all my reviews