Murder in Bloomsbury

December 18, 2017
In Quincy’s solid second Atlas Catesby mystery (after 2017’s Murder in Mayfair), world traveler Catesby and the widowed Lady Roslyn Lilliana Warwick investigate the sudden death of her maid’s brother in Regency-era London. The coroner has ruled that Gordon Davis, a footman turned factory clerk, accidentally overdosed on the arsenic he took for medical reasons, but the form of arsenic in his body doesn’t match the type he habitually used. Davis was a seductive schemer determined to marry into wealth. Those who wished him dead include the father of a youth he lured into gambling debt, the aristocrats whose daughters he compromised, and the conventional young woman whose scandalously explicit letters he threatened to reveal. As Catesby untangles the victim’s many intrigues, his passion for Lilliana reawakens, but the social chasm between a baron’s fourth son and the sister of one of England’s most powerful dukes still deters him from asking for her hand. Quincy evokes both the contradictions of her setting and the romantic tensions between her protagonists, though anachronistic attitudes and language throughout can jar. Readers will look forward to Catesby and Lilliana’s further adventures. Agent: Kevan Lyon, Marsal Lyon Literary Agency.

January 1, 2018
Who would want to poison the handsome footman? That's what adventurer and amateur sleuth Atlas Catesby tries to discover at the behest of the woman he loves, Lady Roslyn Lilliana Sterling, sister to the Duke of Somerville.Catesby is well-born--his father was a famous poet--but of moderate means. He hardly considers himself worthy of Lilliana, whom he helped out of a dangerous situation when he knew her only as an ordinary tradesman's widow (Murder in Mayfair, 2017, etc.). Somerville summons Catesby to do a favor for Lilliana, whose maid Tacy's brother, Gordon Davis, has been found poisoned by arsenic. Although Davis' death has been ruled an accident, Tacy insists that he was murdered by one of his many enemies. Catesby can never resist a difficult puzzle, and a chance to spend time with Lilliana is an added fillip. Davis, who worked at a dye factory that used arsenic, allegedly stole some and took small amounts for his health, although the arsenic found in his stomach was white, not the sooty kind used at the factory. As more of Davis' activities are discovered, Catesby confirms that there are indeed plenty of motives for murder. Davis was romancing everyone from married women to innocent young girls in hopes of making an advantageous marriage. Catesby and Lilliana must use their diverse skills and contacts to find out just who these women are and whether there is a husband or father angry enough to kill. In the course of their search, they grace the ballrooms of the aristocracy and visit pornographic booksellers. Despite Catesby's reluctance to woo Lilliana, they're drawn closer together as they hunt a very angry killer.A spirited and romantic mystery with a most surprising ending.

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