What Darkness Brings

Starred review from December 17, 2012
A murder case complicates Sebastian St. Cyr’s recent marriage in Harris’s excellent eighth Regency mystery (after 2012’s When Maiden’s Mourn): the accused, former privateer Russell Yates, is the husband of Kat Boleyn, St. Cyr’s long-time love interest, for whom he still pines. Yates is charged with the fatal shooting of diamond merchant Daniel Eisler at the merchant’s London house. Yates, who had an appointment with Eisler, claims he heard a pistol shot at the door before rushing inside and finding the merchant dead in the parlor, where Eisler’s nephew discovered him crouching over the body. St. Cyr learns that the unscrupulous Eisler tried to sell a large blue diamond that had been one of the French Crown Jewels, but that disappeared in 1792. The combination of complex back story, intricate plotting, surprising developments, and poignant evocations of the lives of the underprivileged makes this one of the best entries in Harris’s superior historical series. Agent: Helen Breitwieser, Cornerstone Literary.

January 1, 2013
Napoleon and Prinny, England's Prince Regent, both lust after a 45-carat blue diamond. After Daniel Eisler, a gem merchant with a fascination for the occult and a sideline in blackmail, is shot dead in his untidy house, magistrate Bertram Leigh-Jones catches Russell Yates, a homosexual profligate, standing over the deceased and whisks him off to Newgate to await trial. Sebastian St. Cyr, still devoted to his first love, Kat, now in a marriage of convenience with Yates, steps in to prove him innocent. This noble decision not only endangers his own pregnant wife, Hero, but pits him against her father, Lord Jarvis, half the cutthroats skulking around Haymarket, and certain French agents Napoleon sent across the channel in pursuit of a diamond looted from the French crown jewels during the Revolution and thought to have been in Eisler's possession. Was Eisler killed to retrieve the magnificent blue diamond? Was he slain by someone so in debt to him he had to let Eisler debauch his wife as partial repayment? Or did the Prince Regent himself target Eisler to reclaim the diamond that had been pawned by his loathed wife, Caroline? Jenny, a doxy who was hiding in a priest's hole during Eisler's demise, knows whodunit. But can Sebastian locate and save her from assassination and Yates from the gallows before it's too late? A lively foray into early-19th-century politics, treacheries and moral indiscretions, though fans of the series (When Maidens Mourn, 2012, etc.) will lament Hero's relegation to a back seat this time around.

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February 1, 2013

Sebastian comes to the aid of his former love when her husband is accused of murder. With a missing diamond, accusations of dark magic, and secrets piling up, Sebastian and his new wife, Hero, will find their marriage and love tested while a killer lurks in the shadows. Historical mystery enthusiasts will enjoy this eighth in Harris's Regency-set series (after When Maidens Mourn).

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March 1, 2013
Eighth in Harris' Sebastian St. Cyr series, this volume is perhaps the best yet, with its air of Regency intrigue and its abashed, somewhat bewildered hero. The story begins with newly married Sebastian, still grieving after the death of a friend, caught up in the murder of a wicked gem dealer whose demise is blamed on St. Cyr's acquaintance Russell Yates, now languishing in prison. Found bloodied and standing over the corpse, Yates needs Sebastian's sleuthing expertise, though it's Yates' wife, Kat Boleyn, St. Cyr's former lover, who begs for help. It's a delicious, complicated tangle made even tastier by Sebastian's bride, the wise Hero, and by Harris' tender treatment of the newlyweds' affection and growing love for one another. Harris' acute characterizations and her facility for portraying the complexities of human emotion are similar to Imogen Robertson's in Anatomy of Murder(2012), while her view of social niceties hiding dark motives conjures Anne Perry.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)