Davidson Bookshelf

Impostor: A Genealogical Mystery

Author: Richard Davidson

Reviewer: Betsy Beard

Beginning in the present day and reaching back through the decades to World War II, Impostor: A Genealogical Mystery by Richard Davidson is a mystery with a great deal of historical fiction thrown in.

Jeremy Hadley’s fiancée, Debbie Danforth, plans to surprise Jeremy with a genealogical research into his origins so that she can present him with a piece of graphic art that represents his family tree. But she runs into complications when she discovers that the man they thought was Jeremy’s great-grandfather was an impostor. Debbie’s research uncovers the fact that the real Michael Farrell Hadley was born in London on 17 April 1914…and died the same day.

In their quest to discover the truth, Debbie and Jeremy travel to England to find answers to the question of his heritage which was conceived in mystery and has been shrouded in secrecy for seventy years. Impostor takes us behind the scenes to the formation of the intelligence gathering community of the late 1930s and carries us through wartime American and British spy rings to the present day farmlands of the English countryside.

Fans of genealogical research are sure to enjoy this fast-paced mystery from its beginning to its surprising and unorthodox conclusion.

I recently learned that during December, one of my readers purchased all of my mysteries and read them in a single month. Hopefully, she has since added my Decision Time self-help guide and Overcoming anthology to her library. It reminds me of my own effort about twenty-five years ago, when I read all of Agatha Christie’s mysteries and short stories in a single year. It’s fun to randomly pick a novel from a mystery author and then, if you like it, read all of his or her other offerings. My mysteries feature common settings and characters that appear throughout my Lord’s Prayer and Imp Mysteries. Each volume stands on its own, but you’ll find familiar people and places in the next novel you read.

My current project emerged from a genealogy effort several months back. This third volume in the Imp Mystery Series is called “Impostor”. When I studied my family tree, I discovered a branch I hadn’t seen before. It was in England, and I found that one of the children was born and died on the same date. I don’t know whether he didn’t survive birth, or if he lived for only a few hours. This discovery made an impact on me, and it’s now the focus of my new book-in-progress. The girlfriend of one of my characters decides to do a family tree for his side of their pending merged family. She discovers that his great-grandfather had the same name, birthplace, and birth date as a stillborn baby. Who was this IMPOSTOR? Naturally, they have to find out more about him…

Impulses is the second volume in my Imp Mysteries series. (Each volume title begins with Imp. Volume 1 in the series was Implications.) Although these mysteries use some of the same characters and settings as my earlier Lord’s Prayer Mystery Series, the Imp mysteries are not tied to a single theme. They are loosely connected stand-alone novels, some of which may stray a bit from the mystery genre.

Impulses presents a story that has many facets, or impulses, to it. Arthur Blake moves from initial boredom caused by a dearth of cases to an array of situations requiring simultaneous investigation. We focus on a small-town rehabilitation home where four female patients have died over the course of a year and also look at the apparent suicide of a pastor who had visited all of those women shortly before they died. Additional casework involves the disappearance of two people from a college town, the arrival of a mysterious shipment at Arthur’s father’s antiques shop, and examination of a woman who is experiencing flashes of memories from a deceased man. This latter evaluation leads Arthur and all of us readers to consider the possibility of life after death, in the context of university studies that have documented convincing instances of prior life memories.

The story also includes the introduction of a pair of younger investigators who assist in this volume’s cases but are likely to have their own adventures in future novels. Enjoy all of our Impulses and the characters who participate in them.