The Circle of Sappho: A Regency Detective Mystery

Lassman and James’s second Jack Swann whodunit (after 2013’s The Regency Detective), set in Regency-era London, successfully juggles a number of compelling plot threads. Swann is still searching for the Scarred Man, who was responsible for the murder of Swann’s father more than 20 years earlier. Even as Swann learns that his quarry may have recently been in Bath, he’s asked by a friend, Lady Harriet Smithson, to look into the deaths of a teacher and a student at a girls’ school. His conclusion that the case is a murder-suicide is questioned by Lady Harriet, who fears that there may be “more sinister forces,” specifically connected to Napoleon Bonaparte’s military ambitions, involved in the tragedy. Swann takes her concerns seriously, given her background as an unofficial member of the Alien Office, which has been created to monitor suspected French revolutionaries entering England. The tale is entertaining enough, though Swann is less layered, and thus less interesting, than C.S. Harris’s Sebastian St. Cyr, who also sleuths in Regency England. (Nov.)