A Botanist's Guide to Flowers and Fatality by Kate Khavari

A Botanist's Guide to Flowers and Fatality (Saffron Everleigh Mystery #2) by Kate Khavari, 352 p.

"1920s London isn’t the ideal place for a brilliant woman with lofty ambitions. But research assistant Saffron Everleigh is determined to beat the odds in a male-dominated field at the University College of London. Saffron embarks on her first research study alongside the insufferably charming Dr. Michael Lee, traveling the countryside with him in response to reports of poisonings. But when Detective Inspector Green is given a case with a set of unusual clues, he asks for Saffron’s assistance.

The victims, all women, received bouquets filled with poisonous flowers. Digging deeper, Saffron discovers that the bouquets may be more than just unpleasant flowers— there may be a hidden message within them, revealed through the use of the old Victorian practice of floriography. A dire message, indeed, as each woman who received the flowers has turned up dead.

Alongside Dr. Lee and her best friend, Elizabeth, Saffron trails a group of suspects through a dark jazz club, a lavish country estate, and a glittering theatre, delving deeper into a part of society she thought she’d left behind forever. Will Saffron be able to catch the killer before they send their next bouquet, or will she find herself with fatal flowers of her own?"--Amazon

This was a fun and engrossing next book in the series. Khavari writes with whit and vulnerability, taking us with Saffron as she navigates an enthralling mystery all while trying to navigate personal feelings. I did miss Alexander in this book and wasn't a huge fan of the love triangle aspect of it, but that's just not a trope I enjoy in general. I will be looking forward to more in this series!

 

A Botanist's Guide to Parties and Poisons by Kate Khavari

A Botanist's Guide to Parties and Poisons (Saffron Everleigh Mystery #1) by Kate Khavari, 262 p.

"London, 1923. Newly minted research assistant Saffron Everleigh attends a dinner party for the University College of London. While she expects to engage in conversations about the university's large expedition to the Amazon, she doesn’t expect Mrs. Henry, one of the professors’ wives to drop to the floor, poisoned by an unknown toxin.

Dr. Maxwell, Saffron’s mentor, is the main suspect, having had an explosive argument with Dr. Henry a few days prior. As evidence mounts against Dr. Maxwell and the expedition's departure draws nearer, Saffron realizes if she wants her mentor's name cleared, she’ll have to do it herself. Joined by enigmatic Alexander Ashton, a fellow researcher, Saffron uses her knowledge of botany as she explores steamy greenhouses, dark gardens, and deadly poisons. Will she be able to uncover the truth or will her investigation land her on the murderer’s list?"--Amazon

Great new historical mystery series with a smart female lead. Gave me Veronica Speedwell vibes, and there's nothing wrong with that! Also, maybe you're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but this is one of the most beautiful covers I've seen in the past few years. 

A Sinister Revenge by Deanna Raybourn

A Sinister Revenge (Veronica Speedwell #8) by Deanna Raybourn, 320 p. 

"Veronica's natural-historian beau, Stoker, has been away in Bavaria for months and their relationship is at an impasse. But when Veronica shows up before him with his brother, Tiberius, Lord Templeton-Vane, he is lured back home by an intriguing job offer: preparing an iguanodon for a very special dinner party.

Tiberius has received a cryptic message-along with the obituaries of two recently deceased members of his old group of friends, the Seven Sinners-that he too should get his affairs in order. Realizing he is in grave danger but not knowing why, he plans a reunion party for the remaining Sinners at his family estate to lure the killer out while Veronica and Stoker investigate.

As the guests arrive and settle in, the evening's events turn deadly. More clues come to light, leading Veronica, Stoker, and Tiberius to uncover a shared past among the Sinners that has led to the fatal present. But the truth might be far more sinister than what they were prepared for."--Amazon

Another great addition to the Veronica Speedwell series. Veronica and Stoker are two of the best series characters out there. Fun reads, kickass women, and great mysteries. 

 

Death in Focus by Anne Perry

Death in Focus: An Elena Standish Novel by Anne Perry --- 305 pages.

The first book in a new series by best selling historical mystery author Anne Perry, set in Europe during the rise of Fascism and the prelude to the Second World War.

From Google Books:

It is 1933 and Europe is a place of increasing fear and violence. Young British photographer Elena Standish is on assignment in Amalfi when she meets Ian Newton, a charming Englishman with whom she falls in love. But what does she really know about him?

Accompanying Ian on a train from Italy to Paris, Elena finds him dying of multiple stab wounds. Ian reveals he is a member of Britain's MI6 (Military Intelligence), on his way to Berlin to try to prevent the assassination of one of Hitler's henchmen. Hitler will eliminate a rival and frame the British for the death, thus creating an excuse to go to war. Elena promises to deliver the message to the British Embassy in Berlin. But she is too late: the assassination succeeds; Elena is accused of the crime and finds herself fleeing for her life.

Meanwhile Lucas Standish, secret head of MI6 during the war, learns that his beloved granddaughter Elena is being hunted in Berlin for murder. With Elena on the run, and at least one traitor in the British Embassy, how can Elena know who to trust?

The book disappointed me. My biggest problem is that Elena, a 28-year-old woman who grew up during the difficult years of World War I and its aftermath, and has been through one intimate betrayal already from trusting too much, is unbelievably naive. My second problem with the book is that some complete stranger (always male) turns up at every crisis to save Elena as she wanders about Berlin trying to evade arrest. On the other hand Perry does capture the fear and despair of people who barely survived one war and are now dreading another.

Click HERE to read the review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE to read the review from Criminal Element.com.

Click HERE to watch Anne Perry discussing her new Elena Standish series. 

A Capitol Death by Lindsey Davis

A Capitol Death: A Flavia Albia Novel by Lindsey Davis --- 308 pages, including a map and a List of Characters.

The seventh book in Lindsey Davis' outstanding historical mystery series sent in first century A.D. Rome during the reign of the Emperor Domitian is everything we expect from a Lindsey Davis book:  a cracking good mystery, meticulous historical detail, and a world weary and street smart detective in dogged pursuit of a murderer.

It is 89 A.D. and the egomaniacal Emperor Domitian is demanding not just one but a double Triumph to celebrate two so-called victories over two rebellious Germanic tribes. Actually, Domitian resorted to enormous bribes to "subdue" the tribesmen, but no one in Rome is prepared to quibble over details with their irrational self-proclaimed Master and God. Preparations for the Emperor's parade are derailed however, when Gabinus, the official responsible for overseeing transport for the Triumph, falls to his death from the ancient Tarpeian Rock at the top of the Capitoline Hill, the sacred precinct of the gods of Rome, and the site of the Temple of Jupiter Best and Greatest.

At first the authorities assume that the dead man either fell accidentally or jumped on purpose. But then a witness turns up insisting that Gabinus was pushed to his death.  An accident or a suicide was bad enough, but a murder was an affront to the gods that could pollute the Emperor's Triumph and unleash Domitian's indiscriminate rage.

Someone will have to investigate, but of course no one wants a job that could make them the prime target of Domitian's wrath. Eventually the job gets handed off to the plebian aedile, Tiberius Manlius Faustus. Still recuperating from the effects of the lightning that struck him on his wedding day (talk about dire portents), Tiberius asks his new wife, Flavia Albia, one of Rome's best informers (ie. private inquiry agent for hire), to look into the matter.

Flavia Albia suspects this is a case of murder, as she quickly discovers Gabinus was despised by everyone who had the misfortune of having to deal with him.  He was an abusive swine who cheated and swindled and made life a misery for everyone who crossed his path. She finds evidence Gabinus was rigging contracts, taking bribes and kickbacks, and running scams on contractors, including one concerning the supply of imperial purple dye and a gullible family of shellfish-boilers from the coast near Rome. When yet another person is found dead at the foot of the Rock, she realizes more lives are at risk.

As Flavia finds herself drawn deeper into the strange world of carnival floats, musicians, dancers, impersonators of ritual victims, incense and sacrificial beasts, can she see past the deceptions to the heart of the matter and break the cycle of vengeance before more deaths occur?

Click HERE to read the * review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE to read the review from the forwinternights blog.

Click HERE to read the review from Crime Reviews.

The Satapur Moonstone by Sujata Massey

The Satapur Moonstone: A Perveen Mistry Novel by Sujata Massey --- 349 pages including a map, a Genealogy, a glossary and Acknowledgments.

The second book in Massey's new series set in India in the 1920s and featuring a Parsi female soliciter who works for her father's law firm when she is not solving mysteries.

Perveen is employed by the British Raj's Kolhapur Agency, which "oversees" the administration  of 25 princedoms and feudal states that are not directly ruled by the British, but must comply with British oversight.

Perveen travels to the remote mountain kingdom of Satapur to resolve a dispute between the widowed grandmother and mother of the 10-year-old heir to the throne, Prince Jiva Rao. The young prince's mother wants to send her son to England for his education.  His grandmother is adamant that her grandson remain at home with the elderly tutor who taught the prince's father and elder brother. The British agent who oversees the kingdom as the guardian of the widows and the children has been refused access to the Maharanis, because the elder Maharani insists that she and her daughter-in-law observe "purdah," the custom of strict seclusion that women from having any contact with males outside their immediate family.

Perveen hopes she can broker a compromise between the royal ladies, since she is empowered, as a representative of the Kolhapur Agency, to decide where the prince will be educated.

However, she arrives at the palace to find it is a hotbed of intrigue and cold-blooded vendettas. The royal family seems to be cursed: the last Maharaja died of cholera; his elder son died shortly after in a gruesome hunting accident. Fear for the safety of the last remaining son is at the heart of the dispute between his grandmother and mother. Adding to the tension is the late Maharaja's ambitious brother, who serves as Satapur's Prime Minister. If he has higher ambitions, he keeps them to himself, since the British would never countenance his succession to the throne.

Too late, Perveen realizes she is caught in a trap, her own life is at risk, and she has no idea who she can trust.

An exotic setting, a strong-willed and intelligent heroine, and children who are paying for the sins of the past.

Click HERE to read the * review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from the New York Journal of Books.

Click HERE to read the review from The Hindu.com

Click HERE to read the review from Aunt Agatha's blog. 

Tombland by C.J. Sansom

Tombland by C.J. Sansom   866 p.

Henry VIII’s eleven-year-old son Edward VI now rules England (well, his uncle the Duke of Somerset actually rules). Intrepid lawyer Matthew Shardlake is feeling his age and his physical disability more and more, but when Lady Elizabeth (later to become Queen Elizabeth I) requests his help in exonerating her distant Boleyn relative of murder, he knows he must treat it as a royal demand. The stakes are already high and the intrigue thick, and then Sharklake and his trusted associates are thrown into the middle of Kett’s Rebellion, a bloody clash between peasants and aristocratic landholders. Will anyone survive? This page-turner concludes with an informative historical essay and extensive endnotes – perfect for the English history nerd.

Triple Jeopardy by Anne Perry

Triple Jeopardy: A Daniel Pitt Novel by Anne Perry --- 301 pages

This is the second book in Anne Perry's new mystery series featuring Daniel Pitt, the now grown-up son of Sir Thomas and Charlotte Pitt, the sleuths in Perry's 32-volume Victorian crime series which began with The Cater Street Hangman and ended triumphantly with Murder on the Serpentine. The Daniel Pitt  books are set in Edwardian England, in the years leading up to the Great War, a period of deceptive calm before the coming tsunami of revolution and war.

Daniel's sister, Jemima, and her Irish-American husband, Patrick Flannery, a police officer in Washington D.C., have arrived in England with their two small children, for a family visit. It's the first time Daniel has met Patrick; he wasn't able to travel to America for Jemima's wedding four years ago. But Patrick is combining this family visit with police business. A young British diplomat claimed diplomatic immunity and came back to England to avoid being charged with assault and theft against the daughter of a prominent Washington family. Patrick says there's now evidence that the diplomat, Philip Sidney, also embezzled money from the Embassy during his time in Washington. Patrick wants Sidney tried for the embezzlement, so that the evidence related to the assault and theft can be raised during the trial as further proof of his bad character.

Daniel is repulsed by Sidney's crimes but reluctant to participate since his part would be to insinuate himself into Sidney's defense team to ensure the appearance of a fair trial but really to guarantee that Sidney is punished for all his despicable acts.  But when word arrives that the man who gathered the evidence of the embezzlement has been identified as the person who pawned the necklace stolen during the assault, and has now gone missing, Daniel begins to have his doubts.

Sidney continues to claim he is innocent of all these charges, and Daniel wonders why a young man who has led an ordinary and blameless life should so abruptly reveal a venal and criminal nature. When the missing man in Washington is found dead of a gunshot to the back of the head and floating in the Potomac River --- and evidence establishes he was murdered after Sidney's boat sailed for home --- Daniel and Patrick are both mystified.  Daniel consults Miriam fford Croft, the brilliant daughter of his Head of Chambers, a trained and qualified forensic pathologist unable to practice her profession due to the misogynistic conventions of that time. It is Miriam who points out the obvious: someone is trying to silence this young man. What does he know that someone is so desperate to hide?

Another one of Perry's intricate blends of character development and courtroom drama with historical exposition. But to really enjoy these books you need to start at the beginning of Thomas and Charlotte Pitt's saga, and then go on to Daniel. 

Click HERE to read the review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE to read the review from the Criminal Element web site.

Click HERE to watch Anne Perry discussing Triple Jeopardy at the Poisoned Pen Bookstore on Youtube.

The American Agent by Jacqueline Winspear

The American Agent: A Maisie Dobbs Novel by Jacqueline Winspear --- 365 pages including Acknowledgements and About the Author.

The American Agent by Jacqueline Winspear is the 15th book in the Maisie Dobbs series. In the early weeks of the Second World War, Maisie must investigate a politically sensitive murder while volunteering as an ambulance driver during the London Blitz along with her good friend Priscilla Partridge. At the same time she is anxiously waiting the hearing that will determine whether she is allowed to adopt the orphaned Anna, a traumatized young evacuee who has lost all of her own family. As part of the murder investigation, Maisie must work with an agent of the Department of Justice on special assignment undercover  at the American Embassy in London, Mark Scott. Maisie has met Scott before, when she rescued a British national from Nazi Germany. Maisie is ambivalent about Scott and unsure whether he feels anything in return or is just using her to get his job done.  Another fine historical mystery from Winspear.

Click HERE to read the * review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE to read the review from the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Click HERE to read the review from Criminal Element.com.    

Smoke and Ashes by Abir Mukerjee

Smoke and Ashes by Abir Mukherjee --- 333 pages including Author's Note and Acknowledgements.

India in 1921, although still under colonial rule, is inexorably slipping out of the hands of its erstwhile British masters, as more and more Indians of all castes rally to the Independence movement of Mahatma Ghandi and its nonviolent noncooperation resistance.

Inspector Sam Wyndham of the British Imperial Police is also losing his battle with the opium addiction that is his legacy from the physical and mental injuries he suffered in the Great War. He spends more and more nights stupefying himself in Calcutta's opium dens, and his days desperately trying to carry on with his duties while his life goes to pieces.

When Sam and his loyal sergeant "Surrender-not" Banerjee are assigned to investigate the grisly murder of a native nurse at the military hospital at Barrackpore, he is stunned at his first sight of the body. The woman has been stabbed twice in the chest, and both her eyes gouged out. Just the night before, Sam saw the body of a Chinese man with exactly the same mutilations. Unfortunately Sam can't tell his superiors about the first corpse, because he stumbled over it as he was escaping from a police raid on an opium den; revealing his presence there would expose his addiction and cost him his job.

With no one he can trust except Surrender-Not, Sam must keep his personal demons from spiraling out of control long enough to solve this deadly riddle. And, if that's not enough, the pending visit of the Prince of Wales to dedicate the Victoria Monument in Calcutta is sparking massive nonviolent demonstrations by the Mahatma's Congress Party, in support of Indian independence. The government is reactig to the demonstrations with threats of violent retaliation, and Surrender-not is suffering from conflicting loyalties to his job and his people.

A well-plotted murder mystery with great characters, set during a crucial period of Anglo-Indian history, with consequences that are still playing out in the relations between West and East.

The child of Indian immigrants, Abit Mukherjee grew up in western Scotland, and discovered crime fiction in his teens. He worked for some years in financial services in London, and wrote in his spare time. His first novel in the Wyndham/Banerjee series, A Rising Man,  won the Harvill Secker/Daily Telegraph crime writing competition. On the strength of that he got a contract with a book publisher, and has gone on to publish two more critically acclaimed novels in the series, A Necessary Evil and Smoke and Ashes.  A fourth novel featuring Sam Wyndham and Surrender-not Banerjee, Death in the East, is scheduled for release next year.

Click HERE to read the * review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from Mystery Tribune.

Click HERE to read the review from Criminal Element.com.

Click HERE to read the review from Crime Fiction Lover.com.

City of Ink by Elsa Hart

City of Ink: A Mystery by Elsa Hart --- 341 pages including Acknowledgments.

Sequel to The White Mirror and Jade Dragon Mountain. Li Du, the former Imperial Librarian who was dismissed from his post and banished from the Imperial City after his friend and mentor Shu was executed for his part in a plot to assassinate the Kangxi Emperor, has spent years wandering the borders of the Empire until chance and circumstances allowed him to prevent a different plot to assassinate the Emperor and won him a pardon. (Jade Dragon Mountain.)

Still, he could not face returning to the Imperial City and the memories of his old life, so he continued to wander in company with a friend met along the way, a storyteller and adventurer named Hamza.  They joined a merchant caravan through the mountains, where they were snowbound by a blizzard in a high valley, and discovered the dead body of a hermit artist. Li Du solved that mystery and uncovered another plot against the Empire. In the course of that investigation he discovered information that led him to believe that his friend Shu was innocent. (The White Mirror.) 

Now Li Du has returned to the Imperial City, where he takes a humble post as a clerk to the Inspector in charge of the North Borough Office in the Outer City. His position allows him to access records that he hopes will help him piece together evidence of what really happened all those years ago. Soon he begins to suspect that Shu stumbled onto the conspiracy and for unknown reasons agreed to take the blame.

Before he can continue his clandestine research however, Li Du becomes involved in the investigation of a double murder in the North Borough.  The wife of a factory owner and a government official from the Ministry of Rites are both found dead in the factory office. It appears as though they were meeting there for a tryst, and the factory owner discovered them and killed them. The factory owner is known to be a man who drinks heavily, and when he is drunk is prone to violence. There are many witnesses who can testify that he was drunk that night, and he even admits he was drunk --- but he vehemently denies the murders.

The Inspector and the Judge he reports to, however, are satisfied of his guilt, but are pressing hard for a confession.  And the law allows a man to kill an adulterous wife and her lover if he catches them in the act, so it would be to the husband's advantage to confess.  Instead, he is found dead in his cell.  It appears he has hung himself out of remorse. Everyone is ready to close this unsavory case except Li Du. He continues to suspect that something else was going on, and these murders were all commited to cover up some greater crime.

Another excellent and complex mystery plus an engrossing portrait of early 18th century China.
Hart is a talent to watch.

Click HERE for a starred review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE for  a review from Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE for a review from the St. Louis Post Dispatch.

Click HERE for a Wikipedia article describing the Chinese Imperial Civil Service examination system.

Cold Bayou by Barbara Hambly

Cold Bayou: A Benjamin January Historical Mystery by Barbara Hambly --- 250 pages

The sixteenth novel in Hambly's evocative mystery series set in antebellum New Orleans and following the adventures of Benjamin Janvier or January, a free man of color navigating the dangerous intersections of old French Creole society and the influx of rough and ready American frontiersmen.

Soon enough Benjamin January finds many reason to regret that he has agreed to play at the wedding of wealthy and eccentric old Creole landowner Veryl St-Chinian to Irish barmaid Ellie Trask, fifty years his junior and saddled with a notorious past and a conniving uncle. Veryl's family are furious; not just the white family but the "crocodile eggs" too --- the free colored mistresses and their children who are acknowledged in private but not in public. As the wedding guests gather at the isolated plantation of Cold Bayou where the marriage is to take place, the body of Ellie's slave, Valla, is discovered in the woods nearby and January himself is accused of the crime.

There's something for everyone here: an intricately plotted murder mystery; a dissection of the horrors perpetuated by America's original sin of racism, both white on black racism and even more invidious black on black racism; and a portrait of the complex ties that both blight and bond a family.

Barbara Hambly writes all kinds of fiction, including science fiction, fantasy, horror, mysteries, and historical fiction. Whatever the genre, her books are distinguished by meticulous research, attention to detail, and compelling characters. This is a series I recommend starting at the beginning and reading in sequence, as the stories build on each other. Reading Hambly is like virtual reality without the glasses: a total immersion experience. I usually wait for a Saturday when I have nothing else scheduled, because I know once I start I will not stop until I finish the book.

Click HERE to read the review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus.

Click HERE to read the review from The Fish Shelf Blog.

Pandora's Boy by Lindsey Davis

Pandora's Boy: A Flavia Albia Novel by Lindsey Davis --- 307 pages including maps, List of Characters, and Author's Afternote

Book Six in the series of historical mysteries featuring Flavia Albia, who has taken over her father’s business as an informer (private detective) in First Century CE Rome.  Albia reluctantly agrees to look into the sudden demise of a privileged young girl after a night out with the brat pack of  her so-called friends.

Clodia's death has devastated her family. Her parents are divorcing, her grandmothers are making accusations against each other. Yet her friends  are indifferent, even callous. Meanwhile, there are rumors among the family's acquaintances and neighbors that the willful Clodia, pining for a young man who did not return her regard, had obtained a love potion from a local herbalist and witch, and that drinking this potion had caused her death. 

But Albia reasons that a love potion --- if there is one --- would have been intended for the young man, not for Clodia's own consumption. She becomes even more dubious when she learns that the object of Clodia's desire was in fact the much indulged grandson of the witch, Pandora --- and the heir to the boss of one of Rome's most powerful criminal gangs. Her investigation reveals the Rome of CE 89 to be a city sinking in a toxic stew of public corruption, private vice and gang violence, the poor desperate to survive, the privileged reeking with entitlement. 

The clear-eyed and skeptical Albia is equal to the task of sifting the sorry truth from this mass of human dross --- though sadly, not without other deaths along the say.

Another entertaining adventure embedded in a well-researched and accurate portrait of First Century Rome in the reign of Domitian. I have been a fan of Davis since my first encounter with Albia's father Falco in The Silver Pigs (1989).

Click HERE to read the review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read  the review from Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE to read the review from the Bookbag (UK).

Click HERE to read the review from the Crime Reader (UK).

The Countess by Catherine Coulter

The Countess by Catherine Coulter - 405 pages


Andrea Jameson, unlike the conventional Gothic heroine, isn't a destitute governess. She's young, rich, and toothsome, and adores her Dandle Dinmont terrier, George. However, Andrea doesn't have a single dream of meeting Mr. Right, marrying, and living happily ever after. Go figure.

She strikes a bargain with an older widowed earl who promises her all the razzle-dazzle without the obey part. She's perfectly happy with the deal until she meets the earl's nephew and realizes fairly quickly that she might have made an exceptional blunder.

But she doesn't have much time to ponder her dim-witted choice of husband because someone is trying to kill her. Will she survive to marry the man of her dreams?

Twenty-One Days by Anne Perry

Twenty-One Days: A Daniel Pitt Novel by Anne Perry --- 303 pages

Best selling historical mystery writer Anne Perry is best known for her two mystery series set in Victorian England, the William Monk mysteries and the Thomas and Charlotte Pitt mysteries.   After thirty-two books appearing over  almost forty years, the Pitts made their final, triumphant appearance in Murder on the Serpentine (2017), in which Pitt, head of Britain's Special Branch, is knighted by Queen Victoria for his services to Crown and Country.

This year the indefatigable Perry debuts a new series, set ten years on in 1910. The old Queen is dead, and the Edwardian Era is underway. Thomas and Charlotte's son Daniel, is a newly minted barrister starting on the ground floor of one of London's most prominent law practices. We meet Daniel in the throes of defending his first serious criminal case. A former police officer, who once worked for Thomas Pitt and now works as a private inquiry agent, stands accused of murdering a man who owed him a substantial sum of money. All the evidence seems to point to Roman Blackwell's guilt, and one witness, Oscar Park, has been particularly damaging in his testimony.

Acting on a hunch, Daniel enlists the help of an expert witness to prove his client's innocence.  And just in time, for he is urgently summoned to assist in another, much more serious case in which a writer of salacious biographies of the rich and/or powerful stands accused of the murder of his wife and the disfigurement of her corpse. Russell Graves insists he is innocent, but he is an arrogant and abrasive man who does nothing to advance his cause. The jury finds him guilty, and he i sentenced to be hanged in just twenty-one days --- unless his lawyers can find legal grounds or new evidence to mount an appeal.

The more Daniel has to do with Graves, the more he dislikes the man; his sympathies are all for the victim, Graves' wife Ebony, and two surviving children, Sarah and Arthur. Graves insists that he's been framed by powerful enemies seeking to derail the publication of his new book, in which he claims to expose corruption and abuse of power at the highest levels of government.

Daniel discovers that Graves' book defames the character of two people close to his family, as well as his own father, Sir Thomas; and destroys the reputation of Special Branch. Daniel also learns that Graves physically abused his wife, children and servants for years. He's sorely tempted to let Graves hang but --- he's not convinced that Graves is guilty of murdering his wife. Can Daniel prevent Graves from hanging for a murder he did not commit, yet make sure he's punished for his actual crimes --- and guarantee that his malicious book never sees the light of day?

Click HERE to see the review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to see the review from Kirkus Reviews.

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 

To Die But Once by Jacqueline Winspear

To Die But Once: A Maisie Dobbs Novel by Jacqueline Winspear --- 325 pages including Acknowledgements.

Entry 14 in Winspear's excellent historical mystery series that began in 1913, just before the start of World War I, and has now reached the spring of 1940. War has been declared, British troops have landed in France and Belgium, and Hitler's army is advancing.

At home, the British are making feverish preparations to defend themselves against invasion, and experiencing that eerie calm before the storm feeling that  nothing much is happening --- yet. The owner of the local pub asks Maisie Dobbs to locate his son Joe, a fifteen-year-old apprentice painter away from home for the first time, working on a big government contract at the new defensive airfields springing up all along the south coast.  The painters are covering the buildings at the airfields with a fire-retardant emulsion to protect against German bomb attacks, but something in the paint has been causing Joe to experience sick headaches. And he hasn't called home or written for over a week.

Maisie is glad to help, but soon discovers that although Joe's gone missing none of his workmates have noticed anything amiss. As an increasingly concerned Maisie pursues her inquiry the country is preoccupied with a possible enemy invasion as rumors spread that the British expeditionary force is being pushed back by the advancing Germans and is stranded on the beaches of France.

The British government issues a call for every civilian with a boat to join the British Navy's effort to evacuate the troops now trapped and under vicious aerial attack. In the middle of all of these alarms, Maisie discovers another boy has gone missing, her friend Priscilla's middle son, and Maisie's own godson. Timothy and his friend Gordon have slipped away to take Gordon's father's boat and join the effort to evacuate the troops. 

Winspear successfully combines history and mystery in a book that brings home on a personal level the terrible costs of war. The book is based on the wartime experiences of Winspear's own family during World Wars I and II, and dedicated to her father, a World War II veteran.

If you've seen the award-winning 2017 film Dunkirk, written, directed and produced by Christopher Nolan, or enjoyed the Foyle's War series on PBS, this book will appeal.

Click HERE to read the review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE to read the starred review from Library Journal.

Click HERE to read a brief interview with the author published in the New York Times.

Click HERE to read the entry on the Evacuation of Dunkirk from Wikipedia. 





   

The Throne of Caesar by Steven Saylor

The Throne of Caesar: A Novel of Ancient Rome by Steven Saylor --- 392 pages including Author's Note.

Author Steven Saylor's acclaimed Roma Sub Rosa historical mystery series, set during the years when the Roman Republic was bloodily evolving into the Roman Empire, has now reached its crux. What a challenge for any author: to maintain suspense and reader interest while portraying one of the most famous murders of all times, the assassination of Julius Caesar on the Ides of Martius, 44 BCE.

Most readers interested enough to read Saylor's book are already going to know the salient facts of Caesar's murder: the who, what, where and the ostensible why. Saylor brilliantly builds the tension by using the reader's foreknowledge as a foil for the efforts of Gordianus to discover and prevent any plot against the Dictator's life at what was the apogee of his power. Saylor delivers a gripping "Ground Zero" account of one of the seminal events of ancient times.

If you haven't read Saylors' series, I recommend you start at the beginning, with Roman Blood (1991), and follow Gordianus the Finder full circle, through the thirteen previous novels and two collections of short stories.

Click HERE to read the review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE to read the review from Open Letters Review.com

Click HERE to find a brief biographical note and bibliography of Steven Saylor from Wikipedia

Memento Mori by Ruth Downie

Memento Mori: A Crime Novel of the Roman Empire by Ruth Downie --- 410 pages including Author's Note, Further Reading, and Acknowledgements.

Memento Mori is the eighth installment in Ruth Downie's historical mystery series set in 2nd Century A.D. Roman Britain that began with Medicus. Her sleuth is a Roman doctor Gaius Petreius Ruso, who was born in the Roman province of Gaul (France), trained as a medicus, and served with the Roman legions in Britain. At the start of the series he rescues a British girl from a brutal slave dealer, and winds up marrying her. Part of the appeal of the series is the very different ways that Ruso and his wife, Tilla (whose British name is Darlughdacha), see the world and the people around them. This very often puts them at cross-purposes, and contributes to the humor of the series.

Tilla is stubborn, independent, and impulsive, and her behavior is definitely not what's expected of a respectable Roman wife. But Ruso is equally unable to maintain the role of the stern and stoic Roman paterfamilias. Now retired from military service, Ruso and Tilla have tried living with his family in Gaul, seeking their fortune in Rome, and are staying with Tilla's family on a farm in the northern wilds of Britain near where Hadrian's Wall is under construction.

In Memento Mori Ruso responds to an urgent plea from his former colleague and best friend, Valens, who's been accused of murdering his estranged wife, Serena, and dumping her body in the sacred hot springs of Aqua Sulis (modern Bath). This is  not only a crime but a dreadful sacrilege, and could destroy the town's prosperity, as many Romans and Britons seek healing in the sacred waters. Tilla of course will not allow Ruso to go alone, and so the entire family travels  to Aquae Sulis to exonerate Valens.

They discover that Valens is hiding because his father-in-law, (retired) Centurion Pertinax, is  determined to track Valens down and see him tried and executed. Ruso learns that there was also a disastrous fire the night of the murder that destroyed a lodging house and left three guests dead in their beds.  There are rumors that the fire was deliberately set, and that the local veterans' association lost a lot of money they had invested in the project to build a second shrine and healing pool on the site. The engineer for the project, Terentius, has gone missing.  To make matters even more complicated, Terentius was also Serena's lover, and she was asking Valens for a divorce so that she could marry Terentius.

Ruso finds his friend, but to his dismay cannot entirely believe Valens' protestations of innocence. Events escalate rapidly, but Ruso survives to solve the puzzle. Another entertaining outing with Ruso, Tilla and Company.

Click HERE to read the review in Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE to read the review from the Italophile bog.

Click HERE to read the review from Open Letters Review.

The Mitford Murders by Jessica Fellowes

The Mitford Murders: A Mystery by Jessica Fellowes --- 421 pages including a Historical Note, Acknowledgements and a brief Bibliography.

The facts are as follows: in January1920, Florence Nightingale Shore, a British nurse, was found murdered on a train travelling between London's Victoria Station and St. Leonards-on-Sea in East Sussex. Witnesses saw a man in a brown suit  leaving the train but the police were never able to identify him and the crime remained unsolved.

Enter Jessica Fellowes, journalist and author of the Downton Abbey companion books, who has taken the bare bones of the murder and dressed it up as the first in a projected series of mysteries featuring the notorious Mitford sisters, whom she calls the "Kardashians" of British society in the first half of the 20th century.  In Fellowes re-imagining, it's then 16-year-old Nancy Mitford, eldest of the brood, who becomes obsessed with solving the crime. The (fictional) link in the book is that the Mitford's nanny's sister is a friend of Miss Shore.

An impoverished young woman running away from an abusive home life, equally improbably,  happens to be an old classmate of a girl who is friends with Nancy Mitford, and through this connection lands a job as a nursery maid for the Mitfords, where she becomes the confidante of young Nancy.  There is lots of period detail and nostalgia, but not quite enough to overcome the torturous convolutions of the plot or the stereotyped characters. 

The author's intention is to have each of the six Mitford sisters serve as the heroine of one of the books in the series.  Alas, Downton Abbey this isn't.

If you'd like to read about the real Florence Nightingale Shore, who was the god-daughter and namesake of Florence Nightingale, find a copy of Rosemary Cook's The Nightingale Shore Murder (2nd ed. 2015).

Click HERE to read an interview with the author from British Heritage Magazine.

Click HERE to read a review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read a review from Kirkus Reviews.