Who Slays the Wicked by C.S. Harris

Who Slays the Wicked: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery by C.S. Harris --- 352 pages including Author's Historical Note.

Book 14 in the Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery Series set in Regency England.

Adapted from Google Books:

When the handsome but degenerate Lord Ashworth is found murdered in his bed, Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, is called in by Bow Street magistrate Sir Henry Lovejoy to help catch the killer. In the previous series entry, Why Kill the Innocent (2018), Sebastian suspected Ashworth of participating in the kidnapping and murder of  vulnerable street children, but was never able to find solid evidence proving his complicity. To make matters worse, Sebastian was unable to prevent his troubled, headstrong young niece Stephanie from entering into a disastrous marriage with the vicious nobleman.

Ashworth only married Stephanie to satisfy his father, the Marquis, who had issued an ultimatum: marry and beget an heir or be cut off without a penny. Now that Stephanie has given birth to twin sons, the Marquis is satisfied. But Sebastian realizes the marriage is a sham. Stephanie has fled her abusive husband and is living with her children at her father-in-law’s Park Street mansion. Ashworth has continued his sadistic sexual liaisons at his own town house in Curzon Street, culminating in his murder.  Sebastian discovers a plethora of suspects among the many people Ashworth has victimized and ruined. But mounting evidence --- ranging from a small bloody handprint to a woman’s silk stocking left at the scene --- suggests Ashworth’s killer was a woman. Sebastian works to uncover the tangled secrets of Ashworth's last days and find his killer, not just for justice sake, but to prove that Stephanie is not the killer. 

Click HERE to read the review in Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review in Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE to read the review from Criminal Element.com

Why Kill the Innocent by C.S. Harris

Why Kill the Innocent: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery by C.S. Harris --- 335 pages including Author's Note.

The 13th entry in this superb Regency Era historical mystery series is Harris's best yet. Set against the backdrop of the 1814 Frost Fair --- the last time that a a bitterly cold winter caused the River Thames to freeze over so that the denizens of London could walk from one side of the river to the other on solid ice --- the story begins with Sebastian's wife Hero literally stumbling over the body of a murdered woman buried in a snow drift in the noisome Clerkenwell slums.

The mystery only deepens when Hero recognizes the corpse as the accomplished Jane Ambrose, a former musical prodigy who teaches piano to the children of the wealthy and powerful --- the Princess Charlotte,  Heiress Presumptive to the British throne, chief among them.  Hero and her husband Viscount St. Cyr know they must move quickly to investigate this death, since the Palace will act to suppress Jane's murder, less any hint of scandal attach to the Princess.

Sebastian and Hero soon discover that Jane, constrained on every side by the misogynistic norms of the time, trapped in an abusive and exploitative marriage, has involved herself in the palace intrigues surrounding the Princess and her despicable father, the Prince Regent. Their dogged pursuit of the truth and some measure of justice for Jane puts both their lives at risk.

Harris's historical expertise and her dramatic acumen combine in a story filled with suspense that illuminates both the glittering facade and the dark depths of Regency London, from the highest to the lowest level. Several historical persons make appearances in the book, while key characters such as Jane Ambrose are based on real people.

I highly recommend all the Sebastian St. Cyr mysteries.

Click HERE to read a review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read a review from Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE to read a review from Booklist.

Click HERE to read a review from allaboutromance.com. 

Click HERE to find more about the London Frost Fair of 1814 from the BBC News Magazine 

Where the Dead Lie by C.S. Harris

Where the Dead Lie: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery by C.S. Harris --- 338 pages

In the twelfth book in Harris' Regency mystery series, Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, is confronted with his most gut-wrenching case yet. Homeless children from London's slums are being stalked, kidnapped, brutalized, tortured and murdered by a serial killer --- and what passes for the law of that time is largely indifferent to their fate.

When the midnight disposal of one young boy's mutilated remains on an industrial wasteland is accidentally witnessed, the watchman who is summoned to the scene recognizes the corpse and rather than dropping it in the "poor hole" --- the mass grave reserved for paupers and unidentified corpses ---takes it to Sebastian's friend from army days, Paul Gibson, a surgeon and anatomist. Gibson enlists Sebastian's aid.

But Sebastian's investigation is complicated by family connections. He discovers that one of his leads, a notorious brothel that caters to wealthy men who like young girls and whips, is under the protection of his politically powerful father-in-law, who uses the brothel as a means of compromising his political enemies. One suspect, a dissolute aristocrat with a string of scandals attached to his name, has just become betrothed to Sebastian's headstrong niece. Another suspect is equally depraved, but as a blood relation to the royal family, untouchable by the law. A third suspect caters to the licentious desires of aristocratic ladies. Such men can commit their crimes with impunity.  Society does not care. But Sebastian does, and he will use any means necessary to bring this killer to justice.

An unsparing portrait of the bitter reality behind the elegant facade of British high society. Definitely NOT your typical Regency romance!

Click HERE for the review from Kirkus.

Click HERE for the review from Publishers Weekly.

When Falcons Fall by C.S. Harris

When Falcons Fall: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery by C.S. Harris --- 355 pages

The eleventh book in Harris' intriguing Regency mystery series.  It's 1813, and Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, has brought his family to the small village of Ayleswick-on-Teme in Shropshire, ostensibly to honor a promise to a dying friend. But the truth is that the friend, Jamie Knox, a London tavernkeeper, looked enough like Devlin to be his brother; and was killed by a man who mistook him for he Viscount.  Now Sebastian hopes that Jamie's family in Ayleswick might be able to tell him something more about the mysterious man who may have fathered both Jamie and himself.

But no sooner did Sebastian and his wife Hero and their entourage arrive in the village when Sebastian is forced to put aside his own quest to assist the young and inexperienced local magistrate in investigating the death of a young widow, also a visitor to the village, whose body is found in the watermeadow beside the River Teme, with an empty laudanum bottle at her side.

It takes very little effort for Sebastian to determine that Emma Chance did not commit felo-de-se ---suicide --- a criminal offense in 19th century England. It takes a little longer to determine how she really met her death, but the true challenge is discovering why she died and who killed her.

With Hero's assistance, Sebastian learns that Emma Chance was not her real name, and that her purpose in coming to Ayleswick was not just a sketching expedition. But was there some connection between the dead woman and Lucien Bonaparte, the estranged brother of the French Emperor Napoleon? Lucien supposedly broke with his brother and fled to England for refuge; he and his family are visiting an estate near Ayleswick. When a British agent keeping Lucien under surveillance is ambushed during a meeting with Sebastian, the Viscount wonders which of them was actually the target?

Sebastian’s investigation takes a new turn when he discovers that Emma is just the latest in a series of young women in Ayleswick who have supposedly committed suicide. Ayleswick reveals itself to be a place where greed and injustice have festered for decades — and where someone is pursuing a relentless revenge. What will it take to stop the killing? 

Click HERE to read a review from High Voltage.

Click HERE to read a review from the Historical Novel Society.

Click HERE to read a review from Kirkus.

Click HERE to read a review from Publisher's Weekly.

Who Buries the Dead by C.S. Harris

Who Buries the Dead: A Sebastian St.Cyr Mystery by C.S. Harris --- 338 pages

In the tenth volume of Harris's historical mystery series set in Regency England, Sebastian and his wife Hero are adjusting to marriage and the birth of their son, Simon. Sebastian and Hero both are overwhelmed not just by the love they have found with each other, and the love they feel for their child, but also by the fragility of life and happiness.

Sebastian can never forget that he has now given hostages to fortune when he is called upon to participate in another dangerous investigation. Wealthy and socially ambitious plantation owner Stanley Preston has been decapitated in an out-of-the-way locale called Bloody Bridge, and Sebastian discovers a clue at the scene of the crime --- a piece of leather coffin strap inscribed with the name of Charles I, the king who a almost two centuries earlier was deposed and beheaded by Oliver Cromwell. By an odd coincidence, Preston was a man obsessed with collecting historical relics related to the Stewart kings, including what is alleged to be the head of Cromwell.

The mystery thickens when Hero's father, Lord Jarvis, the power behind the throne of the Prince Regent, informs Sebastian that workmen at Windsor Castle recently discovered the long lost coffin of Charles I, hidden in the tomb of Henry VIII and his Queen Jane Seymour, beneath St. George's Chapel. And the corpse of the Stewart king is missing its head.

In addition to solving Preston's murder, Sebastian is now charged with recovering the missing head before the Prince Regent comes to inspect the coffin. But the investigation is complicated by the reappearance of a deadly enemy from Sebastian's past, and the reluctant testimony of a shrewd spinster with remarkable powers of observation and a secret of her own to protect.

Another winning entry in a series that continues to combine history, mystery and romance.

 Click HERE to read a review from Kirkus.

Click HERE to read a review from the Life Is Story web site.

Click HERE to read an interview on ShelfPleasure.com with author C.S. Harris talking about Who Buries the Dead and the future adventures of Sebastian and Hero.

Why Kings Confess by C.S. Harris

Why Kings Confess: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery by C.S. Harris --- 340 pages

This is the ninth in C.S. Harris' absorbing Regency mystery series featuring Sebastian St. Cyr and his wife Hero. In the frigid cold of January 1813, a secret mission from the Emperor Napoleon has arrived in London with an offer to negotiate a peace to the long war between Britain and France. Napoleon's army having just suffered a disastrous retreat from his ill-conceived winter invasion of Russia, the Emperor is willing to make terms with the British.

When a French physician attendant upon the head of the secret delegation is found brutally murdered and mutilated in a London slum, and a French emigre woman of notably anti-Royalist sentiments is found badly injured beside him, Sebastian initially suspects that someone wants to disrupt the already tenuous peace initiative. Among his chief suspects are his own father-in-law Lord Jarvis, and the surviving members of the French Royal family who found refuge in Britain: the brothers (and heirs) of Louis XVI and Louis and Marie Antoinette's daughter, Marie Therese.

Sebastian discovers that the injured emigre woman, Alexi Sauvage, was involved in a brutal ambush that happened during Sebastian's military service in the Peninsular War, and has haunted him ever since. Because of what happened then, he distrusts her evidence and her motives.

When Sebastian discovers a connection between this murder and the mystery of the Lost Dauphin, the boy prince who supposedly died in prison during the most savage days of the Revolution, he soon incurs the enmity of Marie Therese and her entourage, and becomes the target of repeated attacks.

And while all this is going on Hero is in the final days of her pregnancy, preparing for the imminent birth of their child, and Sebastian --- knowing Hero's mother's tragic history of miscarriages and still births --- is terrified that something will go wrong and he will lose her and the baby.

Murder, suspense, and all wrapped around a real historical mystery.  Learn more about C.S. Harris and the Sebastian St. Cyr series by clicking HERE to access her blog --- and read an excerpt from the next Sebastian St. Cyr mystery Who Buries the Dead, due out in 2015.

 

What Darkness Brings by C.S. Harris

What Darkness Brings: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery by C.S. Harris --- 353 pages

Harris' latest mystery is set in Regency London in September 1812. A London diamond merchant with an unsavory reputation has been found murdered and rumor has it that a magnificent blue diamond (said to have been stolen from the French crown jewels during the late revolution) also disappeared from the merchant's premises on the night of his death. Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, whose passion for justice has led him to take an interest in the solution of several notorious crimes, and his new wife, Hero Jarvis, become involved in the investigation when the husband of Sebastian's former mistress is taken up for the crime.

Although Russell Yates, Kat's husband in name, insists he is innocent, Sebastian knows that Hero's father, Lord Jarvis, will make sure Yates hangs for it unless Sebastian can discover the real killer. As Sebastian begins asking questions he quickly discovers the merchant had many enemies, a penchant for sexual intrigue and blackmail, and an obsession with black magic. A clever historical mystery series with a developing Regency-style romance at its heart.