ShortBookandScribes #BookReview – Dead as Gold by Bonnie Burke-Patel
Dead as Gold by Bonnie Burke-Patel is published by Bedford Square Publishers and is out now. I won my copy in a giveaway by the author.
From Bonnie Burke-Patel, author of I Died at Fallow Hall, shortlisted for the 2025 Betty Trask Award, CWA Gold Dagger, and McDermid Debut Award.
Adam Conlan has made a new life for himself in Morrow-on-Sea. After a wild youth, the goldsmith had settled down, determined to be around for his young son. But now Ophelia Richards appears at his studio door, asking if he will buy her gold. The writer entices and unsettles him; he sees she is adrift in the same cold pain and loneliness as he is.
At the same time, faces begin appearing at the studio window, an unwelcome gift arrives in the post, gold goes missing.
Then comes death, then comes Detective Inspector William Kent.
Woven through with Morrow’s fairy tales, Dead as Gold is a modern gothic crime novel veined with love, violence, family, and desire. Humans still use fairy tales to explore their deepest truths. So who is a wolf, and who is a sparrow?
Dead as Gold is set in a fictional coastal town called Morrow-on-Sea. Adam Conlon resides there, making his living as a goldsmith and co-parenting his son, Felix. A number of unusual things happen all at once: a mysterious face at the window, an item missing from the workshop, an animal heart in the post, a break in and robbery, and the entrance into his life of Ophelia Richards. Ophelia visits Adam’s workshop to sell some jewellery but her life seems to become more and more entwined with Adam’s as time goes on.
As with I Died at Fallow Hall, Bonnie Burke-Patel’s first book, Dead as Gold has a beautiful pared back clarity to the writing, a kind of melancholy feel to the daily lives of the characters in the quiet seaside setting. Adam and Ophelia are the main protagonists but there is another, DI William Kent, who adds an additional voice to the story when he is called in to investigate the robbery. Each character is very different to each other but as an ensemble piece they complement each other perfectly.
The story is interwoven with fairy stories, ostensibly Morrow’s tales, but based on dark fairy tales of old. A clever device by Burke-Patel and one that gelled really well with the overall themes and style of the novel. The plot itself took one or two quite unexpected turns, just when it seemed that the outcome was going to be pretty straightforward, and it added a nice twist to this gothic crime novel.
I really enjoyed Dead as Gold. It kept me turning the pages, interested in the characters and what was happening to them. As with Farrow Hall, there are no chapters, but there are section breaks and each section is only a few pages at most, often just a few paragraphs. I found this meant that the book flowed really well. I can’t wait for book three now.
Born and raised in South Gloucestershire, Bonnie Burke-Patel studied History at Oxford. After working for half a decade in politics and policy, she changed careers and became a preschool teacher, before beginning to write full time. She lives with her husband, son, and needy cat in south east London.