4 stars for another well done historical fiction book in the Sebastian St. Cyr series. Sebastian and his wife Hero(married in the previous book) are about to go on a honeymoon when they are notified that Hero's friend Gabrielle Tennyson has been found murdered. Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, agrees to help solve the murder at the request of his friend Sir Henry Lovejoy, the Bow Street magistrate in charge of the investigation. Devlin has helped Lovejoy before and because he is an aristocrat and heir to the Earl of Hendon, he can ask questions of other aristocrats that Lovejoy can't in England of 1812..
There are some false leads, and Devlin is attacked several times(always miraculously surviving). But the murder is solved. Devlin's complicated relationship with his wife and her father are explored. Why they got married is explained in book 6. Devlin's loathing of Hero's father Lord Jarvis is also explained in previous books. To say more would be a spoiler for previous books.
Some quotes:
"No man in England was more powerful than Jarvis. His kinship with the King might be distant, but without Jarvis's ruthless brilliance and steady wisdom, the House of Hanover would have fallen long ago and the Hanovers knew it."
For the benefit of my GR friend Karla, I'm including a description of 1 of Hero's outfits:
"Today she wore an elegant carriage gown of emerald satin trimmed with rows of pintucks down the skirt and a spray of delicate yellow roses embroidered on each sleeve."
This was a library book.