Tasha Alexander, A Poisoned Season

A Poisoned Season

Morrow, Apr 2007, $23.95

ISBN: 0061174149

Widow Lady Emily Ashton comes to London to enjoy the social season. However, as always amidst the Ton, rumors abound as almost everyone enjoys titillating scandal as long as it is not their own. This season the gossipers focus on rude Charles Berry, who insists he is related to the late French King and Queen Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette and should be sitting on the French throne. In fact his often boorish behavior supports his contention that he has royal blood.

At about the same time that haughty Berry is looking down at the English aristocracy, someone breaks into several of the homes of the wealthy and pseudo-wealthy; the thief steals only items once owned by Marie-Antoinette; in fact leaving behind much more valuable items than those purloined. A bit on the eccentric side, Lady Ashton is curious about the thefts but goes into overdrive when she begins receiving Greek love poems and a valuable pink diamond owned by Marie-Antoinette, but not from her lover Colin Hargreave, who wistfully tells her he wished he gave them to her, but alas did not. Wanting to know who her suitor is she begins to investigate only her inquiry changes when friend David Francis is poisoned to death allegedly by the thief.

This is a delightful Victorian amateur sleuth tale with a nice touch of romance adding depth to the blend. Emily is a delightful eccentric, but it is Berry who steals the show with his mysterious airs that will keep the audience wondering if he is a con artist, a thief, or the real thing. Tasha Alexander's strong investigative tale has a solid, deep, late-nineteenth-century anchor so that fans of historical fiction and whodunits will want to traverse London with Lady Emily Ashton (also see AND ONLY TO DECEIVE).

Harriet Klausner