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.