Genre: Historical, Romance
LGBTQ+ Category: Gay
Reviewer: Ulysses
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About The Book
When the Commissioner of Police assigns a personal case, failure is not an option. However, what begins as a simple mystery soon turns into something far more complicated. An opera singer dead in her bath, a Smithfield butcher skinned alive, a dentist locked inside a steam engine… What is the connection?
With Baxter’s help, the Clearwater detectives begin investigating the gruesome and seemingly unrelated murders, fully aware that failure could spell disaster for the agency.
As Baxter strives to prove his worth as a detective, he finds himself falling for a young police constable, but his search for love and success takes a chilling turn when he makes a horrifying discovery: the killer may be closer than he thought.
The Review
Interestingly, this book also seems to be Ben Baxter’s story. More of his story.
I’m not the only reader of this series that loves Benjamin Baxter, twenty years old, orphan, former rent-boy, and now the coachman/groom/stable boy for Delamere House. The author notes that people had asked for more Bax, and here it is.
An unpleasant visit from Inspector Moreton, who oversees the interactions between the London Police and the Delamere Agency, leaves Jimmy Wright and Jack Merrit rattled. They are handed a cold case, the mysterious death of the Police Commissioner’s niece in a Mayfair house fire a couple of years back.
By this time, we’ve already had an introduction to the variety of London newspapers, and have read an article by Jack’s paramour, Larkin Chase, about the death of a country vicar by falling masonry. Somehow, we know, this is all going to come together. The theme here is newspapers, as a source of both entertainment and evidence.
Bax has gradually been taken on by Jack as his apprentice, and in this book we really learn what goes on in Bax’s mind. We also see that Jack, himself not entirely attuned to the emotional sore spots of others, can be more than a little blind to Bax’s feelings. Bax desperately wants to rise up to be a detective, as much as he enjoys his comfy apartment (with a private bathroom) above the horses he loves and cares for. Jack has gradually begun to include him in the quiet social life of Delamere House, but Bax still yearns for the kind of companionship that Jack has found with Larkin.
The life at Delamere House is painted with vivid hilarity—the two teenage Felman brothers, now learning the ropes as houseboys and sous-chefs under Mrs. Sparks, are safe and happy for the first time in their young lives. Ned Maddiver and Will Merrit are close friends, their precision-driven minds working in harmony as they research and study to help Jimmy Wright and Jack Merrit with their detective work. Max, the butler, still dreams of the stage, all the while keeping a watchful eye on the entire household. It is a household unlike any in Victorian Britain; a motley crew of rescues living in a mansion under the patronage of a young earl (who lives next door, when he’s in London).
The major emotional charge is presented in the person of Constable Charles Inning, who had submitted a report on the death of the commissioner’s niece. He is brought into the case and immediately catches Bax’s eye. Throughout the book, Bax’s relationship with his mentor, Jack, and that with his new colleague, Charlie, take center stage.
The mystery itself gets increasingly complicated and frustrating, especially with the pressure on from the metropolitan police. As always in these books, the fairly placid opening chapters begin to speed up, until the heart-stopping denouement brings everything to a climax.
Five stars.
The Reviewer
Ulysses Grant Dietz grew up in Syracuse, New York, where his Leave It to Beaver life was enlivened by his fascination with vampires, from Bela Lugosi to Barnabas Collins. He studied French at Yale, and was trained to be a museum curator at the University of Delaware. A curator since 1980, Ulysses has never stopped writing fiction for the sheer pleasure of it. He created the character of Desmond Beckwith in 1988 as his personal response to Anne Rice’s landmark novels. Alyson Books released his first novel, Desmond, in 1998. Vampire in Suburbia, the sequel to Desmond, is his second novel.
Ulysses lives in suburban New Jersey with his husband of over 41 years and their two almost-grown children.
By the way, the name Ulysses was not his parents’ idea of a joke: he is a great-great grandson of Ulysses S. Grant, and his mother was the President’s last living great-grandchild. Every year on April 27 he gives a speech at Grant’s Tomb in New York City.
