Raw emotion and gripping mystery!
An Artless Demise (Lady Darby Mystery #7) by Anna Lee Huber
I found myself absolutely immersed in this unforgiving historical murder mystery set in 1831 London.
The public anxiety about resurrectionists, a spate of lordly murders, "the life of Italian Boys, the Reform Bill, and the Anatomy Bill, " all part of the historical record, form the background for this Lady Darby mystery with Kiera and her husband Sebastian Gage.
What is not part of the historical record is Kiera's dread and fight to survive censure from the ton with all that is happening. Her fears are so real that they jump off the page with dread. The past once more intrudes upon the present and she rages against it, “and so it begins again...The old accusations. The frightened glances and furious snubs...Will the past never leave me be?”
"Burkers" were named after Burke and Hare, two resurrectionists from Edinborough who'd smothered their victims and sold their bodies to the local anatomy schools. "They had killed sixteen people before being caught."
With this latest rampage the London public is up in arms and mob mentality is being reflected in the tonnish ball rooms. A pregnant Kiera is the one being targeted.
The death of three of their own gives the ton the excuse to drag up what they see as Kiera's past iniquities. Never mind the fact that as the former wife of the once great, now infamous anatomist Sir Anthony Darby, Kiera had been threatened and forced to draw the bodies he'd procured from resurrectionists.
Meanwhile Kiera is being blackmailed by unknown persons, a publisher is about to print Darby's private journals, and she and Gage have been asked to bring their skills to bear on deaths of three Lords apparently by resurrectionists and other burker deaths, including an Italian boy.
Another raw and gripping mystery that Kiera and Gage find themselves reluctantly thrust into. The murderer must be found. Along the way both Kiera and Gage have to relive and in Gage's case learn more about, the emotional and physical abuse done to Kiera by her former dead spouse, and the resultant fears for Kiera's personal safety are revisted.
A Berkley Publishing Group ARC via NetGalley
*****
The public anxiety about resurrectionists, a spate of lordly murders, "the life of Italian Boys, the Reform Bill, and the Anatomy Bill, " all part of the historical record, form the background for this Lady Darby mystery with Kiera and her husband Sebastian Gage.
What is not part of the historical record is Kiera's dread and fight to survive censure from the ton with all that is happening. Her fears are so real that they jump off the page with dread. The past once more intrudes upon the present and she rages against it, “and so it begins again...The old accusations. The frightened glances and furious snubs...Will the past never leave me be?”
"Burkers" were named after Burke and Hare, two resurrectionists from Edinborough who'd smothered their victims and sold their bodies to the local anatomy schools. "They had killed sixteen people before being caught."
With this latest rampage the London public is up in arms and mob mentality is being reflected in the tonnish ball rooms. A pregnant Kiera is the one being targeted.
The death of three of their own gives the ton the excuse to drag up what they see as Kiera's past iniquities. Never mind the fact that as the former wife of the once great, now infamous anatomist Sir Anthony Darby, Kiera had been threatened and forced to draw the bodies he'd procured from resurrectionists.
Meanwhile Kiera is being blackmailed by unknown persons, a publisher is about to print Darby's private journals, and she and Gage have been asked to bring their skills to bear on deaths of three Lords apparently by resurrectionists and other burker deaths, including an Italian boy.
Another raw and gripping mystery that Kiera and Gage find themselves reluctantly thrust into. The murderer must be found. Along the way both Kiera and Gage have to relive and in Gage's case learn more about, the emotional and physical abuse done to Kiera by her former dead spouse, and the resultant fears for Kiera's personal safety are revisted.
A Berkley Publishing Group ARC via NetGalley
*****
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