Pearce's solid fifth pre-WWI historical to feature Sandor Seymour of Special Branch (after 2007's A Dead Man in Tangier
) takes the Scotland Yard detective to Barcelona, Spain, to crack a two-year-old cold case—the death, while in a Spanish prison, of an English businessman, Sam Lockhart. Lockhart was arrested during the bloody riots that erupted in Barcelona in 1910 after reserve troops refused orders to serve in Spanish Morocco. Seymour's assignment enables him to reunite with Chantale de Lissac, his half-Arab, half-French romantic interest, who uses her people skills to help him learn more about the hidden personal and political passions that may have led to Lockhart's murder. As usual, Pearce is more concerned with—and more successful at—bringing his chosen milieu to life than stumping the reader with a puzzle. Fans of the author's Gareth Owen series (The Mark of the Pasha
, etc.) will note similarities between Chantale and Owen's independent-minded Egyptian girlfriend-turned-wife. (Dec.)
