Where the Dead Lie

February 13, 2017
Moving depictions of life on London’s mean streets are the best parts of Harris’s 12th Regency-era mystery featuring dashing Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin (after 2016’s When Falcons Fall). Less memorable is the whodunit involving a search for a serial killer preying on children. After Benji Thatcher’s mother was transported to Botany Bay, the 15-year-old street urchin cared for his younger sister, Sybil, until he was abducted, sexually abused, tortured, and killed. The grisly crime comes to Devlin’s attention after a watchman by chance interrupts the burial of the corpse. Devlin fears for Sybil’s safety and worries that the man responsible for Benji’s ordeal has claimed other victims. As in previous books, Devlin crosses swords with his Machiavellian father-in-law, Charles, Lord Jarvis, the “real power behind the Hanovers’ wobbly throne,” who regards the deaths of orphans as trivial compared with the affairs of state. The plot develops predictably, but Harris is better than most in investing even minor characters with sometimes heartbreaking humanity. Agent: Helen Breitwieser, Cornerstone Literary.

February 15, 2017
In Regency England, a viscount pursues the sadistic killer of London's most vulnerable denizens.Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, and his former comrade in arms, surgeon Paul Gibson, have seen more than their share of violent death in wartime. But neither one can look calmly at the body of Benji Thatcher, a street urchin who was cut, whipped, raped repeatedly, and strangled. The death of one more homeless pickpocket is unlikely to cause a stir among most of fashionable London, but Gibson and Sebastian specialize in solving crimes that others can't or won't. Sebastian's wife, Hero, is a social reformer who's writing a series of articles about the poor of London, and while she interviews some of the street children who knew Benji, Sebastian uses the testimony of an old soldier who saw and interrupted someone digging Benji's grave as a starting point for finding out what happened not just to Benji, but to a number of other homeless children who've disappeared. The owner of a secondhand store helps direct Sebastian to a brothel catering to clients who like their prostitutes young, and contraband copies of a book by the Marquis de Sade bring Sebastian closer to identifying the person responsible for the pitiful collections of children's bones buried near the shallow grave meant for Benji. Unfortunately, Sebastian's suspects--an actor, a French count, a dissolute marquis' heir about to marry into Sebastian's family, and an even more highly connected person who's also a relative of Hero--all have alibis. But Sebastian's power-hungry father-in-law presents the biggest obstacle to his sleuthing in a tale that, despite top boots and tall hats, velvet spencers and gowns a la grecque, and even a cat named Mr. Darcy, is a far cry from the world of Jane Austen. Harris (When Falcons Fall, 2016, etc.) is as determined as her lead couple to explore London's underbelly. Hold onto your carriage strap: the tangle of familial, criminal, and political conflict makes for bleak reading.

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January 1, 2017

Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, isn't one to turn away from the more sordid offerings of 1813 London, but even he's appalled when the body of 15-year-old Benji Thatcher turns up in the ruins of an abandoned factory. Among the city's too-numerous-to-count homeless youth, Benji had been tortured, but it seems few are unduly concerned about his abduction and murder. Except Sebastian, who, in this 12th installment of Harris's popular series (after Where Falcons Fall), is determined to identify the boy's killer. His investigation takes him through the highest echelons of Regency-era power, where he must contend with Marquis de Sade-level sadomasochism operating behind a veil of protection that offers it legitimacy. VERDICT Not for the faint of heart, this latest installment in Harris's well-researched historical series features a charismatic lead who's unafraid of exposing the inner workings of a controlling authority when it turns against its own people. [See Prepub Alert, 10/17/16.]

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2017
Following When Falcons Fall (2016), this new series entry exceeds even the previous novels in psychological depth, as Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, discovers his own deep compassion for homeless children. Called by his friend Dr. Gibson to investigate the death of young Benji Thatcher (abandoned, tortured, raped, killed, and partially buried in a warehouse yard), Sebastian learns from a witness that a gentleman waited near a carriage while a ragged young man dug Benji's graveat one o'clock in the morning. Subsequent questions unearth the possibility that the gentleman may even be a member of Sebastian's own family, which only enrages him further. Sebastian's intense loathing for the crime and its perpetratorhe suspects nearly everyone he meetsstarkly contrasts with his delight in his wife and son, deepening his character. This, combined with the compelling, grim account of child predators and the novel's relentless pacing, create a gripping read. Chris Nickson's gritty mystery, At the Dying of the Year (2013), and the excruciatingly suspenseful The Orphanmaster (2012), by Jean Zimmerman, deal with similar crimes involving orphaned children.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)