Author C.S. Harris brings us another marvelous historical mystery in book #17 of the Sebastian St. Cyr series, WHEN BLOOD LIES. This Napoleonic era series is an absolute delight, with a wealth of historical details and many real life characters and true historical events skillfully worked into the tales. The mystery is well-paced and there are, as always, plenty of charming red herrings to keep us guessing.
Aristocratic sleuth Sebastian St. Cyr, Lord Devlin, and his activist wife Hero are in Paris on the trail of Devlin’s mother the Countess of Hendon, who fled her marriage (and her 11 year old son Devlin) and England more than 20 years ago. Before Devlin can confront his errant mother, he stumbles across her dying body flung off the Pont Neuf bridge. Now Devlin must uncover who stabbed his mother and tossed her off the bridge, while tiptoeing through the insanely tricky politics of the opposing French factions of the Bonapartists, the Bourbons, the Orléanists, and the Republicans. All the while, Napoleon is marching back toward Paris after escaping his parole in Elba.
This series should be appreciated in order, as the reader is put right back into the series’ saga of Devlin’s slow discovery of his family’s many secrets. WHEN BLOOD LIES is fast-moving and richly complex, with delightful historical figures such as the head of several competing French spy agencies and members of the Bourbon monarchy providing a lush tapestry into which Sebastian and his family are interwoven. Everyone is working at cross purposes, with plots and secrets piled up everywhere one looks. It makes for such a tricksy setting for Hero and Devlin to try to investigate within, and adds to the sheer fun of this mystery.
Sebastian and Hero are such compelling figures. Admirable and nuanced, they are larger than life, and I adore them both. This is a series that never disappoints me, and WHEN BLOOD LIES is another tightly executed mystery and delight. Historical mystery fans won’t go wrong is diving into this delicious series by the redoubtable Harris.
Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, has spent years unraveling his family’s tragic history. But the secrets of his past will come to light in this gripping new historical mystery from the USA Today bestselling author of What the Devil Knows.
March, 1815. The Bourbon King Louis XVIII has been restored to the throne of France, Napoleon is in exile on the isle of Elba, and Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, and his wife, Hero, have traveled to Paris in hopes of tracing his long-lost mother, Sophie, the errant Countess of Hendon. But his search ends in tragedy when he comes upon the dying Countess in the wasteland at the tip of the Île de la Cité. Stabbed—apparently with a stiletto—and thrown from the bastions of the island’s ancient stone bridge, Sophie dies without naming her murderer.
Sophie had been living in Paris under an assumed name as the mistress of Maréchal Alexandre McClellan, the scion of a noble Scottish Jacobite family that took refuge in France after the Forty-Five Rebellion. Once one of Napoleon’s most trusted and successful generals, McClellan has now sworn allegiance to the Bourbons and is serving in the delegation negotiating on behalf of France at the Congress of Vienna. It doesn’t take Sebastian long to realize that the French authorities have no interest in involving themselves in the murder of a notorious Englishwoman at such a delicate time. And so, grieving and shattered by his mother’s death, Sebastian takes it upon himself to hunt down her killer. But what he learns will not only shock him but could upend a hard-won world peace.
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