WARNING! INEVITABLE SPOILERS BELOW!

It’s Wheeling, Virginia during the 1850 when a murder takes place in Wetzle’s Cave. A local steamboat captain, Gareth Owens, is found murdered with multiple gunshot wounds and strange signs of slow arsenic poisoning. Needless to say, this doesn’t look good for the rapidly industrializing riverport city; but its above the mayor’s and the sheriff’s paygrade. Out of desperation to clear this blemish on Wheeling’s reputation, they deputize a local professor and astronomer, Henry Russell, to investigate the case. With the assistance of his daughter, Athena, Professor Russel turns from lecturer and researcher into a regular sleuth in search of the truth: who killed Captain Owens?

It's no mystery from the above summary that The Body in the Cave is a historically set mystery novel. Wheeling, Virginia (now West Virginia) is a real-live place, as is Lewis Wetzel’s Cave, the Wheeling wharves (now known as the waterfront), as well as many other historical landmarks mentioned throughout the novel. The same can be said for the background events as well, namely the cholera outbreaks that ravaged Wheeling just prior to the date in which the story is set.

As a life-long Wheeling local, I can attest that the research done by author Chuck Wood is accurate and thorough. Though many fictional elements have been added, such as Zane College (West Liberty and Bethany colleges are the closest historical analogue), none of them stick out as impossibilities or breaks from immersion. As a work of historical fiction, Wheeling 1850 has done its homework. And there is an additional element worth mentioning—that is the science described throughout the work. The author, Chuck Wood, is an astronomer himself, and it shows, as his two well-educated co-protagonists engage in observational study as well as application of deductive reasoning to their research as much as their investigation.

That moves us to the mystery itself. As a who-dun-it, The Body in the Cave succeeds at constructing a complex and unpredictable set-up. Many, many suspects with believable motives and means to commit the crime fill Henry’s and Athena’s list as they interview and investigate with the power invested in them by the mayor. The case gets more complicated the deeper they delve. Side crimes of uncertain relation to the murder emerge, creating a network of rabbit holes for the Russel’s to get lost in.

But that’s where the novel’s strengths reach their limits. As mentioned, the plot is well set-up, but the execution of its finish leaves something to be desired. One of the side cases, involving the desecration of the murdered captain’s grave, takes center stage for a greater portion of the book than does the final rise toward the climax. The effect is that of stolen thunder—stolen partly because the side case comes earlier, but also because it feels contrived. The perpetrator’s crime seems out-of-character given his characterization prior, which leads me two my critique of the characters, but in a moment—we don’t want to rush to the end like what occurs in the novel.

The pacing of a mystery depends on the revelation of the central question. In this case, “who committed the murder?” As the close of the novel approaches, many of the major suspects are eliminated, leaving three, although one of those three is discounted prematurely (for which lamp-shading is used to patch the hole during the resolution). That leaves two suspects, one of which is obviously foreshadowed to be the murderer. This all occurs before the climactic moment, leaving action to drive the plot the rest of the way to the finish. Unfortunately, action is not 1850’s strong suit, and so the last several chapters of the book peters out before the reader ever reaches the highest moment.

That wouldn’t be so bad (as mentioned, the set-up is good), but the book leans very heavily on its plot to keep reader interest. The characters do no heavy lifting on that front. They are self-inserts and flat, static stereotypes, all of them. Henry is a stand-in for the author (both are astronomy teachers with modern, progressive values—ill-fitting for the setting of the book). Athena is a modern, progressive woman transplanted into the 1850s. The characters more representative of their time are backwards, backwater caricatures, mostly—stupid, vicious, cowardly, bigoted, etc.—functionally foils by which the protagonists are made to seem paragons of virtue. Collectively, they shatter any sense of verisimilitude. This effect is exaggerated by their dialogue which mostly serves as historical and moral exposition. In short, every conversation reads like a stage play beating the reader over the head with the message: “We are the good people who support good things, and the rest are the bad people who support and believe the bad things.”

But overlooking the dialogue and character writing, Wheeling 1850: The Body in the Cave was a fun read, especially for a local to the area. As a first novel from an academic with a science background, it does fairly well, and it is to be followed up on by sequels, giving room for the growth of the author’s story-telling skills.

If you’re a fan of history and murder mystery or a local denizen of Wheeling, you’ll find Wheeling 1850 a brief, interesting, and worthwhile read. Click the book cover above to order your copy!