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Reviewed by Jamie Michele for Readers' Favorite
David Boito’s Fatal Castle opens with the Kohinoor’s arrival at Queen Victoria’s palace in 1850 before moving to the Tower of London in 2023, where the diamond’s colonial history lingers in the Crown Jewels. Ashley Bellamy, a UCLA history student and lifelong diamond obsessive, has come to London to reconnect with her father, Clive Bellamy, the Chief Yeoman Warder charged with guarding the Tower’s routines and legends. After Ashley slips into the Jewel House vault with royal jeweler Bernard, a supposed emergency quickly shuts the fortress down as tourists are pushed out. The bomb-disposal team entering the grounds is not what it appears to be, and the Tower’s ancient walls become the trap around Ashley and Clive as the Kohinoor itself becomes the prize.
David Boito’s Fatal Castle is a fantastic contemporary thriller with historical detail, and Boito turns the Tower of London into a fortress whose old defenses still have modern use. Clive Bellamy is excellent because his Beefeater knowledge becomes a survival skill once Bindar, a former bomb-disposal expert, uses a false bomb threat to enter the Tower with armed thieves and steal the Kohinoor. It is so incredibly clear that Boito has exhaustively researched what was, and what continues to be, the mechanics of the Tower. I live in London and am a Heritage member, which means I can visit it whenever I want, and even I did not know this stuff! Clive raises the St. Thomas drawbridge and drops the Bloody Tower portcullis to slow them down. Ashley is just as good, since her diamond knowledge and understanding of Tower blueprints keep her thinking under pressure when Bindar pulls her into the theft. Boito also gets the father-daughter relationship right: Clive uses the castle to protect Ashley, and Ashley refuses to leave him behind. Well written and dangerous, readers who enjoy locked-fortress thrillers will adore this book.
