"An atypical amateur sleuth" - review of HELL'S BELLS

HELL'S BELLS by Jill Johnson (Black & White, 2024)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

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.

Eustacia Rose is not your typical amateur sleuth. When we first met her in Devil’s Breath (published as The Woman in the Garden in the United States), she’s prickly, awkward, a disgraced professor of botanical toxicology hiding away from the world while tending a rooftop garden full of poisonous plants and regularly spying on the comings and goings of her attractive neighbour. A gloriously eccentric loner who’s as much a mystery herself as the crimes she gets caught up in. While her captivating first outing was a BBC Between the Covers pick and dual Ngaio Marsh Awards finalist, it did feel like Eustacia Rose’s story deserved to bloom for more than one season.

So it’s great to see her back in Hell’s Bells, the second mystery from Brighton UK-based Māori storyteller Jill Johnson. This time Professor Rose has returned to teaching at University College London, only for a sudden death that looks like a possible poisoning and a stalker-ish PhD student with eyes on Eustacia’s poisonous plant collection to upturn the life she tries to keep well in order.

When the student also turns up dead, Eustacia feels compelled to investigate.

Johnson, who used to run a leading UK comics store (and later studied for a degree in horticulture), has crafted a wonderfully unusual heroine. Blunt yet unintentionally hilarious at times, fearful yet brave, Eustacia and her relationships with others, often botanically categorised, deliver a fresh feel to the intriguing mystery storylines. A very good read that cements Eustacia Rose as one of the more interesting series characters to appear on the crime and thriller scene in recent times.

This is a growing series (a third, Belladonna, will be published in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand later in 2025) that will delight classic mystery fans, and those who love quirky, eccentric detectives..

[This review was first written for Deadly Pleasures magazine in the United States]

Craig Sisterson is a lawyer turned writer, editor, podcast host, awards judge, and event chair. He's the founder of the Ngaio Marsh Awards, co-founder of Rotorua Noir, author of Macavity and HRF Keating Award-shortlisted non-fiction work SOUTHERN CROSS CRIME, editor of the DARK DEEDS DOWN UNDER anthology series, and writes about books for magazines and newspapers in several countries.