A Poisoned Season

A Poisoned Season
by Tasha Alexander
Recommended Ages: 13+

In her second adventure, beautiful young widow, scholar of Greek classics and antiquities, and crime-solving sleuth Lady Emily Ashton promises another widow she will do her best to solve her husband's murder. No one even realized the gentleman was murdered until his valet fell victim to the same poison, and the bereaved wife believes the maidservant arrested for the crime is innocent. This time, the crime seems somehow related to a rash of burglaries in which artifacts connected with Marine Antoinette have been stolen. Pretty soon, Emily begins to experience personal danger, as the burglar strikes inside her own London townhouse and begins brazenly leaving love-gifts for her. Meanwhile, someone tries to run her down with a horse-drawn carriage; someone, evidently with a source insider her household, starts vicious rumors calculated to destroy her standing in genteel society; and the Queen herself commands Emily to choose a new husband by the end of the season – an unwelcome pressure on a lady who has learned to enjoy a certain freedom in widowhood.

Emily continues her investigation, despite threats and ominous messages warning her to stop. She somehow can't believe the cat burglar is the murderer, although he is chillingly skilled at appearing out of nowhere, disappearing again and watching her undetected. She also finds herself embroiled in something of a love triangle, between an idle playboy she has known since they were both babies and the handsome intelligence agent who happened to be her late husband's best friend. There's never any doubt about which one she'd prefer, but the question becomes whether she can make up her mind to accept his proposal before the choice is taken away from her. Even with a queen on the throne, Victorian England is no time and place to be a liberated women, if you care at all about being admitted to the best circles of society. And despite her independent streak, Emily still does care. Just not enough to let an innocent woman hang for a murder she didn't commit.

This historical mystery-thriller is, if anything, even more delightful than And Only to Deceive, to which it is the sequel. Some of the characters in it are so horrible that their behavior might make you gasp. Many of them are just plain fun, in some cases subversively so. On vivid display are the "marriage market" of the London season, cynical political intrigues playing across the English Channel, and the frankly unromantic state of romance in a period, culture and class where marriage is often little more than a business arrangement. The heroine has spirit, wit and grit. Her friends, suitors and servants fill out a colorful main cast, supported by a domineering mother, a socially varied range of witnesses and suspects, a broad moral spectrum of more-or-less villains, and a central passion that heats up to where the kettle whistles just as Emily risks her life on a final gambit to trap a murderer.

This is book 2 of going-on 17 (so far) in the Lady Emily series. Further titles run from A Fatal Waltz through the upcoming A Cold Highland Wind.