Winter of Despair

Harrison’s stellar second Gaslight mystery improves on 2019’s Season of Darkness. In 1855, authors Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, who are close friends despite their differing levels of literary success, are strolling in London when they’re summoned to a murder scene by the real-life Inspector Field, who inspired Dickens’s Inspector Bucket in Bleak House. The victim is Edwin Milton-Hayes, an artist who was slashed to death in his studio by someone who also vandalized a painting of his titled Winter of Despair. Collins has a personal connection to the dead man, who was scheduled to dine at his home and also knew Collins’s artist brother, Charley. The studio contains four other paintings with ominous titles such as The Night Prowler and Root of All Evil. With Charley a prime suspect, Collins and Dickens team up again to investigate, pursuing the theory that Milton-Hayes was blackmailing the people depicted in the five pictures. Superior plotting and characterization lift this entry. Fans of Harrison’s Burren mysteries will be pleased. Agent: Peter Buckman, Ampersand Agency (U.K.). (Jan.)