As Harlequin inexplicably tries to make its already short books even shorter, I’ve become accustomed to opening its books and finding huge print and margins. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many of the series books I’ve read of late have subsequently been more shallow, less developed, and less satisfying. So whenever I open a series book these days where the print doesn’t look like it was borrowed from a children’s book, part of me sighs with pleasure. Words! Glorious words! Most of the better series books I’ve read lately have been ones with smaller text and margins. They feel like there’s more to them because there is more to them. This is true once again with Jean Barrett’s gothic mystery To the Rescue.

Jennifer Rowan is on a desperate voyage across the English countryside to prove her innocence in a murder investigation. A colleague in the antiquities business is dead, the priceless Warley Madonna – an ancient piece said to be carved from the wood of the true cross – is missing, and she had the misfortune to be discovered over the body with her fingerprints all over the antique pistol used to kill him. She hopes that a monk at the monastery that owned the Madonna can give her some much-needed answers.

Hot on her trail is private investigator Leo McKenzie, who wants her to answer questions of his own. But when they’re caught in a blizzard and she sees his car crash off the road, she knows she can’t leave him there to freeze to death. Pulling him from his car, she manages to get them both to safety at the monastery. This is no mere monastery though, but a medieval castle given to the order by a devout follower in the sixteenth century. The locale makes for a forbidding sanctuary for Jennifer, Leo, and several other travelers taking shelter from the storm.

At first Jennifer is told that the monk she came to see has cloistered himself and taken a vow of silence, so she won’t be able to see him until he so chooses. Shortly afterward, she stumbles on his freshly murdered body. Someone at the castle is a killer, and with the storm keeping them isolated there, it’s up to her and Leo to figure out who it is, and who might be the next victim, before the murderer strikes again.

Barrett’s The Legacy of Croft Castle was one of the better books in Harlequin Intrigue’s “Eclipse” gothic promotion. The same is true of To the Rescue, for many of the same reasons. It has a pitch-perfect, precisely rendered setting that makes a wonderful backdrop for this kind of tale. From the moment Jennifer sees the castle for the first time, the author deftly portrays it in a way that adds to the ominous atmosphere:

“As if by a deliberate magic, the wind dropped at the same time the shroud of snow momentarily lifted. The clouds overhead briefly parted. Halting the car, Jennifer found herself looking across a valley at a steep-sided, craggy peak. The faint light of day streamed down on the summit where, looking as though it had been carved out of the rock itself, the castle perched, like a great sailing ship in a turbulent sea.”

Shortly thereafter, Jennifer drives up to the structure and is greeted by a robed figure lit by a single lantern, a cowl hiding his face. It’s clear we’re in deliciously gothic territory here. Barrett uses good details to describe the castle and make it feel vivid and real. England is also an atypical locale for a series book these days, at least outside the more traditional Romance and Presents lines, and placing the story in a monastery is even more unique, all of which adds to the tale’s feeling of freshness.

This is very much a mystery with a romance, rather than the other way around. The romance is developed reasonably given the book’s short time frame and the circumstances of the story, but it’s secondary to the plot. Fortunately the mystery is intriguing enough to sustain the book, though obviously readers who want a romance above all else may feel otherwise.

As I mentioned, the book’s print and margins are small, indicating that this is a longer book than its 243 pages would imply. This is entirely evident in the mystery. Not only is it more original than most romantic suspense, there’s simply more to it than is usually the case in most series suspense novels these days. It’s more thought out and much more involved, with the details of how Jennifer came to be in this situation, the fascinating information about the Madonna, and the various suspects, all of whom seem to be hiding something. As the characters investigate, the reader has the chance to follow the clues and try to figure it out with them.

I liked both Jennifer and Leo and they have a nice rapport. They’re both smart, strong characters, especially Jennifer. The opening scene shows her escaping from the hotel where he’s tracked her down, and her rescue of him further demonstrates she’s no weakling. However, they certainly could have been explored more. This is the book’s main weakness: character development is largely sacrificed to the complicated plot. The secondary characters aren’t developed much at all. Each is given one or two perfunctory characteristics, so they come across as rather thin and one-note. As a result, trying to figure out which of them is the killer is less emotionally engaging than it would be if they were more vivid creations.

Even so, I’d rather a book fall a little short in an area due to trying too much than doing too little, which is usually the case with the series books I’ve been reading lately. This is one book where the author is trying to deliver as much story as possible in the short series format, which I for one appreciated. With a cool setting, interesting subject matter, and a well-conceived plot, To The Rescue is an original and intriguing mystery.