Excerpted from WHEN THE WOLVES ARE SILENT by C. S. Harris:
The early hours of Sunday, 24 November
“Merciful heavens,” said Sir Henry Lovejoy, one splayed hand pressed against the small of his back as he leaned over to study the stiff, hideously burned corpse by the flickering light of a horn lantern held aloft by one of his constables. More constables were fanning out around them in a search of the area, the feeble glow of their lanterns waveringpinpointsin the blackness. It was now the wee hours of Sunday morning, and the wind had come up cold and damp and heavy with the scent of promised rain. “What a frightful sight.”
“That it is,” said Sebastian, standing beside him.
He watched as Lovejoy tilted his head first one way, then the other, his gaze solemn as he studied what was left of the dead man’s black, ravaged face. Barely five feet tall, the magistrate was slightly built, with a bald head, an almost comically high voice, and a fierce dedication to truth that sometimes brought him into conflict with both his fellow magistrates and the powerful men around the Prince Regent. He was the least senior of Bow Street’s three stipendiary magistrates, and had at one time been a successful merchant. But the brutal, senseless murder of his wife and child and the profound spiritual crisis that followed had altered the course of his life forever. It was now nearly six years since the time when Sebastian had been a fugitive accused of a murder he didn’t commit and Lovejoy the man charged with the task of bringing him in. In the years since, the magistrate and the aristocratic former cavalry captain had forged an unusual but strong friendship, based on mutual respect and a shared determination to find a measure of justice for the victims of murder.
“Hopefully the poor man was dead before this happened.” Lovejoy straightened with a quickly concealed grimace, his hand dropping back to his side. “You say he’s Sir Samuel Toole’s son, Marcus?”
“Probably.”
Lovejoy glanced over at him. “Only probably?”
Sebastian nodded to the charred figure before them. “Who could recognize him like this?”
“True.” His features set in thoughtful lines, Lovejoy turned to stare out over the rolling plain to the south, where the dim glow of the lights of London showed in the distance. “I suppose it is theoretically possible that Marcus Toole—or someone else—could have killed another young man and dumped his body on the fire in the hopes it would be burned beyond recognition. Improbable, perhaps, but certainly possible.”
Sebastian could think of another possibility, but he was careful to keep that one to himself. “Tell me about Gilbert Keebles. How did he die?”
“It was rather strange. A couple of mudlarks found his body washed up on the riverbank down by Rotherhithe. He was last seen in what I gather was an advanced state of intoxication when he left his friends at the cockpit on Birdcage Walk, so initially it was assumed he’d fallen into the river drunk and drowned. Then the surgeon who performed the post mortem discovered a knife wound in his side. The curious thing, though, is that he hadn’t been robbed.”
“I’m surprised the mudlarks who found him didn’t strip him.”
“I’ve no doubt they would have if a constable hadn’t chanced to come along at just the right moment.”
“Fortuitous.”
“Indeed. The generally accepted explanation is that he must have been stabbed by footpads, then tumbled in the river and drowned while trying to escape them. But there’s no proof of it, obviously.”
Sebastian watched as a couple of the men from one of London’s deadhouses unloaded a shell from the cart they’d left at the base of the hill and began to trudge up the footpath toward them. “The murders of two friends occurring so close together is rather . . . odd.”
“It does lend a certain amount of credence to your nephew’s fear that someone is deliberately targeting his friends.” Lovejoy’s face took on a flat, pained look. “Marcus Toole’s father, Sir Samuel, is both a substantial Norfolk landowner and a Member of Parliament, while Keeble’s father, General Sir Peyton Keebles, was a hero of the American War. I fear the city’s newspapers are going to whip their readers into a frenzy over this.”
“Which means the palace will want someone arrested and hanged. Quickly.”
Lovejoy met Sebastian’s gaze and nodded silently, then looked away. “It’s unfortunate Lord Wilcox was too . . . ” He hesitated as if searching for the right word. “. . . distraught to be of any further use tonight.”
“Hopefully when he sobers up later today he’ll be able to recall more clearly what happened,” said Sebastian. He had insisted Bayard take Hendon’s coach and personally explain the situation to Sir Henry, while Sebastian himself stayed to keep watch on the murdered man’s body. But in the end Lovejoy had given up trying to get much sense out of the younger man and simply dropped Lord Wilcox off at his doorstep in St. James’s Square before heading out to Primrose Hill with his constables.
“What precisely were Toole and your nephew doing here, anyway?”
“From the sound of things, they were drinking at Chalk Farm Tavern and one or the other of them—Bayard says it was Toole, but who knows?—came up with the brilliant idea of climbing the hill and lighting a bonfire.”
“Don’t tell me they’re part of this new movement to resurrect the culture and religion of the Druids.”
“Bayard says no. They were just drunk and kicking up a lark.”
Lovejoy frowned, for he took as dim a view of the excessive consumption of alcohol as of the neo-Druid movement. “I doubt that will stop Fleet Street from publishing endless speculations linking what happened here tonight to the ancients’ propensity for burning human sacrifices.” He paused, then added, “You don’t think that’s what’s at work here, do you?”
“No.”
Lovejoy nodded. “Let’s see that carving you found again.”
The magistrate’s frown deepened as he took the piece and turned it over and over in his hands. “Where precisely was it?”
Sebastian jerked his head toward where the men with the shell had almost reached the crest of the hill. “About there, just off the footpath.”
Lovejoy studied the geometric design incised on the wolf’s flank. “It does look as if it might be a reproduction—or perhaps a recreation—of something Celtic, does it not?” He handed the carving back to Sebastian. “Lost no doubt by one of the participants in the heathen ritual held here a few weeks ago on All Hollows’ Eve—or ‘Samhain’, as these ‘Druids’ have taken it calling it.”
“Probably,” said Sebastian, tucking the carving back into his pocket.
Hopefully.
The two men fell silent as they watched the workers from the deadhouse rest their shell beside the remnants of the bonfire and gingerly set about lifting the stiff, blackened corpse on to it.
“Your nephew is fortunate not to have also fallen victim to this killer.”
“Yes,” said Sebastian, and left it at that.
Excerpted from WHEN THE WOLVES ARE SILENT by C. S. Harris Copyright © 2026 by C. S. Harris. Excerpted by permission of Berkley. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Narrator: Tom Kiteley
Sebastian St. Cyr #21
A brutal string of ritualistic killings terrorizes a city already shaken by economic and political turmoil in this chilling new historical mystery from C. S. Harris, USA Today bestselling author of Who Will Remember.
London, 1816: When a notorious young aristocrat is burned alive on a windswept hill popular with neo-Druids, former cavalry officer Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, finds himself plunged into a murder investigation shadowed by tales of ancient human sacrifices and long-buried secrets.
The victim, Marcus Toole, was the only son and heir of a prominent nobleman. His closest friend—Sebastian’s own nephew, Bayard—claims to have passed out drunk before the attack and remembers nothing. But when Sebastian and his brilliant wife, Hero, delve deeper into the sordid activities of Bayard and his friends, they come to realize that Bayard may not be as innocent as he pretends. Following a tangled trail that leads from a disaffected former soldier-turned-highwayman to a beautiful, courageous journalist and a Jamaican-born fencing master with ties to a radical political movement, Sebastian begins to suspect that Bayard and his friends are being targeted in revenge, by victims who believe they have no other recourse.
Then two more of Bayard’s friends are killed, their murders staged to echo the ritual sacrifices of the ancient Celts. With the palace shaken by the fear of riots and one horrifying death following another, Sebastian must race to stop a ruthless plot that threatens the lives of innocents and could rip his troubled nation apart.
Mystery Historical | Thriller Historical [ Berkley, On Sale: April 14, 2026, Hardcover / e-Book / audiobook, ISBN: 9780593953891 / eISBN: 9780593953907 ]
Lush historical mystery is compelling and dark
Candice Proctor, aka C.S. Harris and C.S. Graham, is the bestselling, award-winning author of more than a dozen novels including the Sebastian St. Cyr Regency mystery series written under the name C.S. Harris, the new C.S. Graham thriller series co-written with Steven Harris, and seven historical romances. She is also the author of a nonfiction historical study of the French Revolution. Her books are available worldwide and have been translated into over twenty different languages. Candice graduated Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude with a degree in Classics before going on to earn an MA and Ph.D. in history. A former academic, she has taught at the University of Idaho and Midwestern State University in Texas. She also worked as an archaeologist on a variety of sites including a Hudson's Bay Company Fort in San Juan Island, a Cherokee village in Tennessee, a prehistoric kill site in Victoria, Australia, and a Roman cemetery and medieval manor house in Winchester, England. Most recently, she spent many years as a partner in an international business consulting firm. The daughter of a career Air Force officer and university professor, Proctor loves to travel and has spent much of her life abroad. She has lived in Spain, Greece, England, France, Jordan, and Australia. She now makes her home in New Orleans, Louisiana, with her husband, retired Army officer Steve Harris, her two daughters, and an ever-expanding number of cats.
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