The Black Country by Alex Grecian

Inspector Walter Day and his Murder Squad are called to a small mining community.  A man, his wife and their smallest child have disappeared, leaving behind the three older children.  The three left behind are the children of a first marriage while the disappeared child is the child of the second.  Where have these people gone?  The innkeeper's daughter has made a horrifying discovery; a human eyeball plucked from its socket.  Is it related?

Day isn't keen on being out of town.  His wife is about to have their first child and he is consumed with worry about becoming a father and whether she will survive childbirth with a healthy child.  Survival isn't a given in 1890's England and there is cause to worry. 

The town itself is another cause for worry.  Day and his Sergeant Nevil Hammersmith have arrived in a setting rife with superstitions and rumors.  There seem to be few people around and little evidence that anyone is worried about the missing inhabitants.  The local policeman has called in Scotland Yard but he has few ideas about how to help.  There is a schoolteacher who is helping with the children of the missing family but outside of her, no one seems concerned or that interested in finding what has happened. 

This is the second mystery in the Murder Squad series.  For readers who enjoy the Victorian time period, this mystery is full of the flavor of Dickens with some murder and mayhem thrown in.  Day and Hammersmith are interesting characters; their loyalty to each other and to pursuing justice is evident.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.