And Dangerous to Know by Darcie WildeMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is the third Rosalind Thorne mystery, and I think it's excellent.
I like Rosalind as a character--bright, decent, lots of gumption, but not a superhero. She has limits. So, believable. Her one-time betrothed is interesting and likable; the Bow Street runner she's bumped into a lot in her adventures is also very cool. She's got friends who write and friends in fancy houses, and not everybody's nice or sympathetic, but lots of them are. It's a great mix, and an excellent setup for mysteries.
This mystery is about an unnamed woman who died outside Lord Melbourne's house, and it's Rosalind's job to figure out what happened even while she's helping Lady Melbourne with missing letters that might be used to blackmail her. (Her husband is in parliament, and her son is destined to be Queen Victoria's prime minister. Her son's wife is Caroline Lamb, who had an affair with Lord Byron and wrote a book kinda about it. All that stuff is true and most of it is relevant to the story.)
Some historical mysteries (in my experience, which is slight to moderate) do a good job with the setting and historical details, and some do a good job telling an engaging mystery story, but relatively few get both right. Stephanie Barron's Jane Austen mysteries are amazing and succeed in both, and C. S. Harris's Sebastian St. Cyr mysteries are another, every title of which I recommend. The Rosalind Thorne series (as always, IMO) is the third that I know of that has great stories in a well-conceived historical setting.
(And all three write under pseudonyms. I wonder if that means something.)
Anyway, this is lots of fun, and I definitely recommend it. I mean, read them in order and all, but when you get a chance read this one...
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