The Hangman’s Secret: A Victorian Mystery

Rowland finally hits her stride in her third mystery featuring photographer Sarah Bain (after 2018’s A Mortal Likeness). In 1890, Sarah is working for a tabloid, the Daily World, along with her two partners in investigation, Hugh Staunton, a lord, and Mick O’Reilly, a 14-year-old former street urchin. At her boss’s request, the trio visit the London pub where Harry Warbrick, a retired hangman and the pub’s owner, apparently hanged himself. Certain irregularities at the scene suggest foul play. Warbrick kept the ropes from his most famous executions, but the one he used on convicted baby killer Amelia Carlisle, “who took in unwanted babies for a fee and supposedly farmed them out to adoptive parents or raised them herself,” has disappeared. The investigators’ search for a motive for Warbrick’s murder leads to a reexamination of the Carlisle case and the ruffling of some powerful feathers. The plotting and characters are an improvement over the prior two books, even if not at the level of Rowland’s best work in her Sano Ichiro series. Agent: Pam Ahearn, Pam Ahearn Agency. (Jan.)