Daniel R. Robichaud

Dulce Castillo’s middle name is Death. Literally. Because her mother so loved the Dorothy L. Sayers’ novels about Lord Peter Death Breton Wimsey, she wound up naming her child Dulce Death Castillo. So, you could say that Dulce was born to a life of c

Dulce Castillo’s middle name is Death. Literally. Because her mother so loved the Dorothy L. Sayers’ novels about Lord Peter Death Breton Wimsey, she wound up naming her child Dulce Death Castillo. So, you could say that Dulce was born to a life of crime. Or at least the solving of such matters.

As a young woman, she even started her own detective agency with her best friend Sierra Fox. The two of them, operating under the name Death & Fox, wound up solving all kinds of cases, missing pets and whatnot. However, while they were on one of their cases, secretly seducing and questioning some suspicious boys, Dulce’s mother wound up killed in a drunk driving accident. Dulce absorbed the guilt for this incident—because she lied about where she’d be, her mother must’ve been out and looking for her when the accident happened. Also, the incident smeared the family name and drove a wedge between Dulce and her best friend.

Years on, both young women (now enemies) are both attending the premier J. Everett School for Criminology. As the annual murder game approaches, Dulce and her bestie Emi are looking forward to showing up Sierra and her gaggle of sycophants by winning the game and the thirty-thousand dollar prize. The money will go to the planned summer trip abroad to visit locations tied to the Lord Wimsey mystery novels.

However, the game is interrupted when Sierra’s boyfriend Xavier Torrez is murdered for real. Sierra is the leading suspect, and with her in custody the police are uninterested in running down additional clues or issues. Desperate for action, Sierra reaches out to Dulce and Emi to prove her innocence. Dulce is initially and understandably reluctant, but soon gets involved. The list of suspects is actually quite long, including quiet wallflower Rose (whom Emi is oddly protective about), the cute transfer student Zane Lawrence, Xavier’s creepy brother Enzo, and others around the school.

In order to get to the truth, Dulce will have to butt heads with Dean Stan Whitaker, possibly corrupt Sheriff Calhoun, Sierra’s mother and town mayor Lily Fox, the coroner Dr. Bates, her favorite teacher Ms. Moss, and even her own father. But like Dorothy Sayers’ immortal creation, she will stop at nothing to learn the facts. Even if it puts her own life at risk. Along the way, she may even learn some painful and dangerous truths about her own mother’s death as well … Lauren Muñoz pens a love letter to Dorothy L. Sayers in the form of a YA murder mystery with Very Dangerous Things.

I’ve never actually read the Lord Wimsey novels, but Muñoz’s book is certainly presenting a compelling argument to fix this oversight. Each of the chapters begins with an epigraph taken from one of the books, offering a thematic or metaphoric link to what will follow. They are charming, witty, thoughtful … you know, right up my alley. The author of Very Dangerous Things is a Dorothy Sayers enthusiast and her first person narrator is as well (thanks to early indoctrination/introduction by her now deceased mother). However, if my experience is any indication, familiarity with those books is not necessary to enjoy this one.

Muñoz tells the story generally in the first person. Dulce is our point of view character, and the world is cleanly presented through her perspective. She’s not a perfect character by any stretch of the imagination. She makes errors, leaps of logic, and even completely incorrect reads of the available data. She’s not a professional and infallible detective but a human one who see evidence, tries to make sense of it, and then has to recant and try again. I appreciate that approach to the mystery genre.

However, there are some chapters presented in a removed third person voice (always flashback chapters, in fact), which Dulce might have learned about or pieced together later, or which might be authorial intrusion. Those chapters are intended to flesh out material that isn’t in the main storyline, giving the reader clues that may or may not mislead them into following the narrator’s own instinctive and intuitive leaps.

In fact, the author is quite clever at giving us enough information and context to mislead us. The final solution is right there from the get go, but our ability to see it is marred. For the characters, relationships get in the way, of course, and big emotions. And we get to ride along, trying to parse the truth from a plethora of blind avenues and wrong turns.

Nicotine poisoning is a big component in the book, and this feels like a wonderful throwback to the mystery novels of yore. We don’t see this particular method these days. That is one more clever touch by the author to lend this compelling contemporary narrative a touch of the classic whodunit. The author is not merely a Sayers fan but seems to be well versed in the history of crime and detection fiction.

Readers versed in the classics of the genre will recognize certain elements throughout. After a brief prologue that indicates both the crime and the eagerness of the narrators to get into the case (only to learn it’s not a game), we take a step back to meet the characters, get a feel for the suspects who will be involved in the investigation, encounter the crime along with a handful of clues, and then a general progression toward the solution to said crime. False testimony, incorrect recollections, ruined timelines, and other setbacks make the investigation all the more challenging. But Dulce will discover the identity of the guilty party by the end. No spoiler there; this is a murder mystery novel, after all …

However, as the author points out in her Acknowledgements, this is not simply a story aimed at the head. Accompanying the contemporary mystery plot is the mystery of Dulce’s own mother’s death and a romance plot that may be more than it seems. Dulce is not a people person (except for her ability to observe people and pick out the motivations behind their actions) and so she is ultimately blindsided by an attraction to her from someone she’s considered off limits. As well, her relationships with friends and foes alike are even more complicated, evolving and growing in real time with the plot’s progression. The result is a rich, layered story with as many moments of suspense that relate to how her relationships to people are changing as to how the mystery is unfolding.

The one-two punch of a compelling plot and compelling relationships makes the novel a terrific place to lose one’s self for a few hundred pages. It’s not a dull read thanks to the author’s attentiveness to the stuff of character, description, and suspense. This is the kind of book almost guaranteed to keep readers up past their bedtimes. It certainly did me.

In the final analysis, Very Dangerous Things is an enjoyable page turner, the kind of book that catches us between two different impulses. On the one hand, we want to cruise through the pages because we are eager to see the resolution. On the other hand, however, we want to take our time because the characters are so rich and intriguing. Muñoz constructs her characters with care and devotion and plots the hell out of this book. There are several twists I did not expect, and the book does a fine job of misdirection. Very Dangerous Things is a worthwhile read for mystery afficionados and romance enthusiasts.