Two Bronze Pennies

June 29, 2015
Set in 1890, Nickson’s second Insp. Tom Harper novel (after 2014’s Gods of Gold) falls several notches below his best work, notably his 18th-century Richard Nottingham series (Fair and Tender Ladies, etc.). A newly and happily married Harper, who worries that his loss of hearing in one ear may become permanent, is enjoying Christmas Eve with his wife, Annabelle, when he learns that a corpse has been found in a Jewish neighborhood of Leeds. The victim, Abraham Levy, was stabbed multiple times, his body arranged to make the sign of a cross, and his eyes covered with two bronze pennies. The timing of the crime and the staging of the body make local anti-Semites the logical suspects. The investigation Harper launches is pretty straightforward, and the plot is diluted by the gratuitous insertion of another mystery, drawn from real life—the disappearance in France of Louis La Prince, the inventor of motion pictures. Agent: Tina Betts, Andrew Mann (U.K.).

July 1, 2015

It is a bitter and raw Christmastide in 1890s Leeds, England. DI Tom Harper is roused from his warm bed by constables telling him that a young Jewish lad has been stabbed and left posed in the street, with two bronze pennies covering his eyes. No one in the close-knit Jewish community is willing to talk to the officers, and when a second young man is stabbed and displayed in the same manner, Harper and the police force go on high alert for rioting and carnage. Further complicating Harper's life is a visit from a French police officer, investigating the disappearance of a French inventor who was headed to America but never reached his destination. VERDICT Nickson's second historical to feature detective inspector Harper (after Gods of Gold) is a thoroughly enjoyable procedural. Victorian-era Leeds comes alive as an unusual setting against which the sympathetically drawn characters perform their roles. Recommend for anyone who loves Ripper Street on BBC America or Anne Perry's Victorian crime novels.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2015
Newly married DI Tom Harper is happily cuddled up with his wife in the freezing cold of a Leeds winter in 1890. But when there's a knock on the door, even though it's Christmas Eve, Harper knows it's bad news. And he's right. There's been a nasty murder in Leylands, the poverty-stricken neighborhood where Leeds' growing Jewish population lives. The victim, a young Jewish man, has been stabbed multiple times, his body laid out like a cross, and two bronze pennies placed on his sightless eyes. Harper fears the murder is racially motivated. Desperate to find the killer before the entire Jewish community rises up, Harper convinces his sergeant, Billy Reed, to let him go undercover to shake things up. Then the local synagogue is set on fire, and a group of young Jewish men decide to take the law into their own hands. Redolent of the smells, sights, and sounds of nineteenth-century England, suspense-filled, tense, and engrossing, Nickson's latest is a fine read and an excellent addition to the Tom Harper series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)