A Budding Socialite Haunted by War - an Editorial Review of "The Last Fatal Hour"

Book Blurb:

For Leona Gladney, former woman soldier of the Union Army, life goes on despite the echoes of the battlefield in her heart. Now a suffragist and budding socialite in Brooklyn Heights, she yearns for a literary life and family. But her husband’s business partner embezzles their money and disappears.

The society matrons of Brooklyn Heights turn a gimlet eye on Leona after the suspicious death of a wealthy friend. Leona will do anything to find justice for her friend and clear her own name, but she finds only secrets, seances and murder.

Book Buy Link: https://geni.us/CvRFM

Author Bio:

Jan Matthews is an American expat living in the sunshine in Portugal. She is (finally) retired from HIM and writes historical mysteries from the Middle Ages to World War I. When not writing or

drinking coffee and wine in nearby cafes, she knits and crochets for charity and reviews books on her blog.

Editorial Review:

Title: The Last Fatal Hour

Author: Jan Matthews

Rating: 4.5

"The Last Fatal Hour" by Jan Matthews follows Leona Gradney, a former Union soldier who is traumatized from her deployment in Civil War, compounded with the subsequent death of the first husband, Jack Davenport, and their child whom she suspects died from her own grief and overuse of laudanum. The novel describes her state as being "on a threshold and beholding two rooms at once. Not only seeing into both rooms, but acting in them at the same time." The novel covers her investigation into the death of her friend, whose official ruling is natural causes. She suspects foul play especially when she learns that her friend's jewellery was stolen and that she herself, has been labelled as a prime suspect.

"“You’ve shared this memoir with your husband?” “Well. No. He knows about the essays and the reviews. I haven’t told him about my being a soldier—I don’t think he—would like it very much.” An understatement if she’d ever uttered one."

This passage reveals the central conflict driving Leona's character. The reader understands that the use of the phase "an understatement" signals a deep-seated fear about revealing her past which could be catastrophic. It is likely that apart from "displeasing" her husband, it would shatter his perception f her and threaten the fragile stability of her new life. The reader knows from the context that her identity as a soldier is incompatible with the modern day ideal of a proper woman or a good wife. The idea of writing a memoir thus emerges as the only place where she can be honest and where she can reclaim her identity and process her trauma.

"Leona did not want the medium and his agents looking into her life, not in its present state. She needed someone more dramatic and

vulnerable, not hardtack Leona. Moneyed and susceptible to handsome young men... A seeker but one who hadn’t the wits to seek for herself. She summoned her imagination to embellish the fiction. One she had to believe herself before it could be believable to others."

This moment occurs when Leona decides to infiltrate the spiritualist's world by creating a false identity. This is after her best friend Daphne's murder and the disappearance of the latter's nurse. Her memoir's manuscript has been taken away by Daphne's grand-daughter who knows her past as a soldier and who uses that information to blackmail her into investigating Daphne's death or risk public exposure. The reader witnesses Leona's keen understanding of the human nature and her ability to manipulate social expectations to achieve her goals. Her survival and success depend heavily on her ability to switch between the soldier, the wife, and the writer that she is, as well as the actress that she has become.

"Would this be her life now, her husband thwarting her at every turn until he’d worn her down? God knew he wasn’t at all like Jack Davenport but if she’d known...her cheeks grew hot, and tears rose in her eyes. Couldn’t he be kind for once after all she’d been through? She’d never spent such a miserable Christmas holiday, her spirit crushed under another brutal heel. Leona dropped the tray with a rattle into the sink. Damn him!"

Leona is caught comparing where she was with her deceased husband, and where she now finds herself with the man she later settled down with. The reader feels her frustration from the domestic tyranny she is facing, and knows she's reaching her breaking point. The phrase "damn him" emerges as an act of defiance, a declaration of war, and a refusal to stay longer under his mercies. She has survived unimaginable horrors, grief, and despair and the reader now craves her escape from her husband, a man portrayed as capable of murder and one whose charm masks a predatory nature.

"The Last Fatal Hour" by Jan Matthews stands out most notably for its depiction of a heroine who successfully disguised herself as a man in order to fight in the Civil War. Her secret, which was only known and kept by a few other soldiers who she fought and bled with, forms the foundation of her deepest fears in the plot, a foundation that a remarkable portrayal of PTSD as a living presence that largely shapes a soldier's decisions and actions, rides on. The novel wins huge by keeping the true nature of her husband under wraps before revealing it in a stunning twist that instantly recontextualizes the whole novel. It additionally stands out for its courageous critique of spiritualism, which it depicts as a predatory industry that exploits the grieving and the vulnerable in the society.

Matthews has offered the world a novel that questions whether once can truly know the people they love, whether there truly exists a single authentic-self or whether we are all performing different versions of ourselves depending on the roles society expects us to play. Throughout, it suggests that justice for women is fragile, that its difficult for a relationship to survive when build on secrets, and that survival is impossible without making difficult, and sometimes morally compromising choices. This is a novel that will appeal to fans of Civil-era historical fictions as well as lovers of mystery and suspense who appreciate tight pacing, clues that have been carefully placed, and twists that are genuinely surprising.

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