WHO CRIES FOR THE LOST

5 stars out of 5

True story: Back in the day when I took History 101 class in college, I hated it so much that I marched out of my last class and headed straight for the registrar's office to change my major to something - anything - that didn't require me to take another history class (I'll spare the rest of the details, but suffice it to say it turned out very positive). And for the most part, I avoid historical novels of any kind. So what am I doing reading books in this series? Well, surprisingly (especially to me), enjoying the heck out of them.

I'll chalk most of that up to the tremendous talent of the author, who pulls together intriguing, entertaining stories in my favorite mystery/thriller genre while weaving in relevant, well-researched and equally intriguing and entertaining details about the time period (in this case, the fairly early 1800s). Right off the bat, there's a dead guy; but not just plain dead, mind you, nor just any old guy. The corpse has been mutilated, and he's now on the exam table of Paul Gibson, who serves as a sort of medical examiner and conducts autopsies. Identifying the corpse turns out to be the easy part; he's the ex-husband of Gibson's current lover, Alexi Sauvage (to be fair, she claims to have been tricked into the marriage).

Gibson is a good friend of series "star" Sebastian St. Cyr, a.k.a. Viscount Devlin, an investigator who at the moment is recovering from a recent wound that nearly did him in. Wishing that he could join his comrades to fight Napoleon as he drives his troops to Waterloo, Sebastian decides to do some sleuthing in the hope of finding the killer. Early on, he gets help from his pregnant writer-wife, Hero - whose father, Lord Jarvis, is on the suspect list - as are any number of women the dead guy has "seduced" over the years including Alexi. On top of that, the man - Major Miles Sedgewick - apparently was "into" the history of witches and the occult and an island that was used for prisoners and all manor of torture.

Add in a previously secret list of prominent and not-so-prominent Londoners who at one time were spies for Napoleon, and Sebastian and Hero have their work cut out for them. Other bodies that start to pile up - some mutilated, others not - create even more confusion to confound the usually competent investigators. Worst of all is that suspicion falls mostly on the his friend, the medical examiner, and his lover - so it becomes a race to find the real killer before they're carried off to the gallows. All told, it's another exciting, nail-biting adventure, and I thank the publisher, via NetGalley, for the opportunity to read and review another pre-release installment of this terrific series.

Who Cries for the Lost by C.S. Harris (Berkley, April 2023); 352 pp.