WHEN FALCONS FALL is book 11 in the Sebastian St. Cyr
Mystery series by C.S. Harris. This Regency mystery
series is so incredibly immersive, I feel like I am
transported to Regency England effortlessly. Richly
evocative descriptions are mixed with the always well-
written period details and sometimes incisively spare
prose. I adore Harris's writing style! Her avid
historical
research enriches her stories immeasurably, but does not at
all feel overdone.
Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, learned two years
earlier that he is a bastard, and not the true heir of the
Earl of Herndon. In the last book, Jamie Knox, who may
have been Sebastian's half-brother, was killed in London by
someone trying to kill Sebastian. Sebastian now travels to
Shropshire to meet his half-brother's grandmother in hopes
of sussing out his family's history, since Sebastian
desperately wants to discover who his biological father
was. The Shropshire village is buzzing with the death of a
young widow, followed shortly thereafter by the death of a
government agent. Sebastian steps in to assist in the
investigation, which features complications such as
Napoleon Bonaparte's brother Lucien, a sinister simpleton
who certainly knows more than he is revealing, and perhaps
even Sebastian's half-sister.
Sebastian and his wife Hero, the daughter of Sebastian's
bitter enemy, have settled into love, and the invigorating
push-pull of their earlier antipathy has settled into
loving domesticity. But their married life is anything but
boring, since (luckily for us) dead bodies seem to turn up
wherever they go! The plot is delightfully twisty, and I
suspected all sort of characters from the village before
the true murderer is unveiled. There are a number of
violent secrets concealed in the placid English village,
which may have their roots in events from decades past.
This well-crafted puzzle is a delight, and Harris does a
masterful job of keeping the many spinning balls juggling
in the air as the reader tries to tease out the varied
mysteries in WHEN FALCONS FALL.
The much-anticipated new entrée in the Sebastian St. Cyr
“simply elegant”* historical mystery series, from the national
bestselling author of Who Buries the Dead and Why Kings
Confess.
Ayleswick-on-Teme, 1813. Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin,
has come to this seemingly peaceful Shropshire village to
honor a slain friend and on a quest to learn more about his
own ancestry. But when the body of a lovely widow is found on
the banks of the River Teme, a bottle of laudanum at her side,
the village’s inexperienced new magistrate turns to St. Cyr
for help.
Almost immediately, Sebastian realizes that Emma Chance did
not, in truth, take her own life. Less easy to discern is
exactly how she died, and why. For as Sebastian and Hero soon
discover, Emma was hiding both her true identity and her real
reasons for traveling to Ayleswick. Also troubling are the
machinations of Lucien Bonaparte, the estranged brother of the
megalomaniac French Emperor Napoleon. Held captive under the
British government’s watchful eye, the younger Bonaparte is
restless, ambitious, and treacherous.
Sebastian’s investigation takes on new urgency when he
discovers that Emma was not the first, or even the second,
beautiful young woman in the village to die under suspicious
circumstances. Home to the eerie ruins of an ancient
monastery, Ayleswick reveals itself to be a dark and dangerous
place of secrets that have festered among the villagers for
decades—and a violent past that may be connected to
Sebastian’s own unsettling origins. And as he faces his most
diabolical opponent ever, he is forced to consider what
malevolence he’s willing to embrace in order to destroy a
killer.
© 2003-2024 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy