Sarah Zettel

This is the sixth Rosalind Thorne mystery. Miss Thorne has excellent breeding, a wide circle of useful acquaintances, and very little money. She makes her living as a "useful woman" who can be hired discreetly to solve problems in the haut ton.

When she is contacted by old school friend Bethany, who is now Mrs. Geral Douglas, to find a very valuable pearl necklace which his gone missing, Rosalind doesn't seem to think this will be a diffucult job. But when she moves into the house and show more discovers the Bethany also lives with her hypochondriac mother, her lazy and drunken father, her sister Nora who has returned after a scandalous elopement with an unsuitable man, her sister Mariah, and her sister-in-law Penelope, Rosalind finds that the pool of suspects and secrets in the household both multiply.

When Nora's supposedly death "husband" Bryan Cantrell resurfaces and wants something from Nora, things get even more complicated. And the complications aren't resolved when someone murders him.

Rosalind has taken on her toughest challenge in this episode. I enjoyed the setting of this story. I also liked the way Rosalind was taking control of her own life. I liked her relationship with Adam Harkness and her maid Amelia.

This was an engaging and entertaining story which makes me want to read earlier episodes in the series. M show less

In the wake of her father's abandonment of her family, Rosalind Thorne has kept a precarious toehold in the upper echelons of society with the aid of her godmother, Lady Blanchard, and by making herself useful to the various ladies of society. Rosalind is adept at creating the perfect guest list for an event or hushing up a potential scandal. But when the body of Jasper Aimesworth is found in the ballroom at Almack's, Jasper's sister Honoria demands that Rosalind find out who is responsible. show more No small task when several of those who discovered the body along with Rosalind are those dearest to her, including her former beau. The situation is even more complicated when a handsome young Bow Street Runner is put on the case. Will determining how the young man died completely destroy Rosalind's position and will she care if it does?

I adored this Regency cozy mystery. Rosalind is an excellent protagonist with a robust back story and the historical details are well-crafted but not so flashy that you can see the author pointing at all the research she did. The mystery was well done as well and the ultimate resolution of the whodunnit was quite suspenseful. If you like cozies and Jane Austen, this is an excellent mix of both worlds. Highly recommended. show less

I am enjoying these mysteries. They are still the closest I’ve found to historical mysteries that feel like they’re actually set in the period, rather than set in some alternature universe with characters who time traveled from the twenty-first century. I love the setup: a gentlewoman fallen on hard times who makes herself into a detective, solving the problems of high society women.

This particular entry, though, did not work as well for me. Partly it was that it’s, like, background show more real person fan fiction (of Lady Caroline Lamb and Lady Melbourne, mostly), and if I’m going to read RPF, I would like it to just BE RPF, please. As background for a mystery novel, it works less well. Not only did it make it much too easy to solve the mystery, but also it wasn’t possible for Rosalind to make any substantive changes in any of the lives around her, which made the book fundamentally unsatisfying. The whole reason she does this is to help women, and here she can’t really help anyone.

Also, this book progresses the main romantic plot *in the epilogue*, which is not the traditional place for dealing with key elements of a series-wide arc. Really, that choice underscores what an unfortunate decision it was to set up the romantic V at all. In this series, Rosalind is trying to choose between Adam Harkness, a Bow Street Runner who is well below the social class she was born in, and Devon Winterborne, a duke who she originally intended to marry before her family’s fortunes collapsed. The V is used as narrative shorthand for the conflict between who Rosalind was raised to be (a gentlewoman) and who she is becoming (a detective).

Tiny problem, though: if Rosalind chooses Adam, she’ll instantly lose access to the world of high society, and thus to her new occupation. If she chooses Devon, she’ll be able to continue being the kind of detective she currently is, but with more stability and safety. So not only is this a V and therefore bad, and a relationship as destiny and therefore bad, it’s also a flawed forced choice that is going to break the series, and therefore very, very bad. Since the romances can’t progress without destroying the series, Rosalind is, at this point, manufacturing hollow reasons not to be with either man. It’s frustrating.

So I did enjoy this book, and I will read the next one, but this series feels like it’s about to collapse under the weight of bad authorial choices made early on. show less

A satisfying and self-contained science-fiction. Al Shei is the capable captain and engineer of the Pasadena, a message packet ship which roams Settled Space. She is both female and devout Muslim, but not in the least disempowered by either. At some time in the past Muslims have caused environmental havoc on Earth (the "Fast Burn" and the "Slow Burn") and have subsequently suffered persecution. The Pasadena is owned by a family business with a complicated structure, and the family show more connections good and bad drive a chunk of the plot. We learn about the crew, each with their own demons and dissatisfactions. 'Watch' Schyler governs operations on the Pasadena. 'Houston' or communications officer Lipinski guards the Pasadena's precious data cargoes. Al Shei's cousin Resit is an onboard lawyer, there to deal with local regulations and getting the crew out of legal scrapes. And Jemina Yerusha is the pilot, a 'Freer' who believes humanity should embrace technology and leave planetary life behind. Joining them is Evelyn Dobbs of the Fool's Guild -- a group which serves as psychologists and morale-builders on board ships.

One of the themes of the book is the classic Firefly-like 'Get a crew, get a job, keep flying' view of the business of operating a small trader. Another is the spontaneous emergence of Artificial Intelligences and the (mostly bad) reactions of humans to that. For the first there are many interesting observations about shipboard and station life. There are 'starbirds' (those who live on ships all the time), 'gerbils' (who run around the walls of a 'can' or space station) and 'groundhuggers' who spend their lives planet-bound. The second theme drives much of the plot and it propels the Pasadena into a nightmare run. Zettel does a great job of increasing the tension with each chapter, with quite a few twists. Al Shei, Yerusha and Dobbs are strong female protagonists, but all the characters are well-realised.

The conclusion was good but a bit rushed. I had a couple of problems with it but overall an excellent and interesting book. At times I would have liked a mini glossary or appendix about some of the factions and historical events referenced in the book such as the Slow Burn, but it was fine. The rich background seemed to set it up for a sequel but, maybe for the better this is a standalone book. show less