The Curse of the House of Foskett

Kasasian deepens the mystery of the relationship between his decidedly non–Holmes and Watson duo in his superior second whodunit set in late Victorian London. Since the brilliant and eccentric Sidney Grice, who bills himself as a personal detective, made a professional misstep in the previous entry, 2014’s The Mangle Street Murders, he and his ward, the prepossessing March Middleton, must now contend with a light caseload. The doldrums end when Grice is approached by Horatio Green, who wants him to investigate the death of a member of “a final death society,” a group of people, usually male, who have no heirs, or heirs they like, and leave their estates to the society’s last surviving member. The trail leads Grice and Middleton to a Miss Havisham–like figure, Lady Parthena Foskett, the sole survivor of a family rumored to be the subject of a curse. Kasasian again successfully blends the gruesome and the humorous. (Jan.)