Murder, Marbles, and Other Improper Museum Encounters

A Cozy Regency Mystery of Love and Murder

A marble Apollo should not fall on a patron in the middle of a tasteful Mayfair preview. It certainly should not do so in Lord Darnwick’s brand new Hellenic Society rooms while half the ton is watching and the victim is a man who has been hinting all evening that he is about to ruin someone important. This is a cozy Regency mystery of love, murder, and very badly behaved antiquities.

Miss Adelaide Pembroke, impoverished gentlewoman and professional copyist of ancient inscriptions, is paid to notice small things. Uneven wedges under a plinth. Dust disturbed in the wrong direction. Patrons who talk of ruin with a little too much satisfaction. Lord Crispin Hatherleigh, Marquess of Darnwick, is paid to keep the Society respectable. One falling statue, one inconvenient corpse, and one increasingly inquisitive magistrate later, Adelaide and Crispin find themselves reluctantly allied as they pick through false labels, forged provenances, committee politics, and the sort of gossip that can kill a reputation long before gravity does.

If Adelaide fails, she stands to lose her livelihood, her family’s already fragile respectability, and the interest of the one man who has ever valued her habit of correcting other people’s accounts. If Crispin chooses comfort over truth, he may save his Society and destroy the woman who just helped keep him out of the dock. Expect a clue rich, fair play mystery and a closed door slow burn romance with a decidedly happy, and extremely efficient, conclusion.

Perfect for readers who enjoy sharp tongued heroines, duty bound marquesses, museum and country house scandals, inquests instead of ballroom scenes, and darkly comic Regencies where the violence is non gory but the remarks are lethal. This stand alone in the Marisa Paxon universe offers a complete mystery and romantic payoff, with plenty of recurring faces waiting if you are inclined to linger among the bodies.