Murder at Queen's Landing

The murder of Henry Peabody, a clerk with Britain's East India Company, whose throat is slashed in London's dockyards, kicks off Penrose's strong fourth Regency mystery featuring the Earl of Wrexford and Lady Charlotte Sloane (after 2019's Murder at Kensington Palace). Several days later, Lady Cordelia Mansfield and her brother, Jameson Mansfield, the Earl of Woodbridge, vanish from London, about the same time Woodbridge's bloody knife is found near the crime scene, and after he took out huge bank loans for unspecified purposes. Cordelia, a brilliant mathematician, is secretly involved in the development of a groundbreaking and therefore valuable mechanical calculator. Wrexford and Sloane use their undercover skills and diverse contacts to pursue the siblings and untangle a conspiracy that touches the heart of Britain's commercial power. The author captures the Regency era's complexities in vivid settings, contrasting milieus, and a wealth of fascinating details, though she overdoes the archaic diction and tries to develop too many plotlines. This thoughtful blend of derring-do and intellectual discussion should win Penrose new fans. Agent: Gail Fortune, Fortune Talbot Agency. (Oct.)

A quarrelsome pair of sleuths share danger and romance in Regency England. Encouraged by her great aunt Alison and the enigmatic Earl of Wrexford, her partner in several murder investigations, Lady Charlotte Sloane is finally resuming the place in society she'd cast off in a runaway marriage. The secret that she's the satirical cartoonist A.J. Quill is safe with Wrexford and several other people, including the street urchins Raven and Hawk, whom she's taken in to raise as gentlemen. Asked by his friend Christopher Sheffield for a loan to start a business enterprise, Wrexford agrees even though Sheffield has no experience and refuses to reveal his partners. Thus begins Charlotte and Wrexford's involvement in another round of murder and malfeasance. But there's much, much more. Jameson, the brother of Lady Cordelia Mansfield, Charlotte's math-genius friend, is a suspect in the murder of an East India Company clerk at Queen's Landing who died whispering "argentum." Wrexford's Bow Street Runner friend asks for his help, but only after Cordelia and her brother vanish does Sheffield reveal that she was his partner. More investigations uncover pieces of the problem, but because someone high in the powerful East India Company may be blackmailing Cordelia and her brother in order to run a dastardly scheme that could affect Britain's standing in the world, they must proceed with caution in their most thorny, dangerous case to date. Scientific discoveries combine with a complex mystery to provide an action-packed brainteaser. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.