The Innocents: A Variety Palace Mystery

In Walsh’s triumphant sequel to The Tumbling Girl, writer and amateur detective Minnie Ward is reluctantly pulled into the investigation of a potential murder spree in late-19th-century London. Minnie has tried to distance herself from crime solving and from private investigator Albert Easterbrook—her former love interest—in the months since the pair closed their first case. Instead, she’s devoted herself to saving London’s financially troubled Variety Palace music hall, where she works as a script- and songwriter. She’s drawn into another murder case, however, when the widow of Judge David Eddings asks Minnie to probe her spouse’s odd death. The judge allegedly asphyxiated inside a trunk in his home during a game of hide-and-seek with his grandson, but given his claustrophobia, Mrs. Eddings doesn’t believe her husband would have hidden inside such a confined space. Minnie turns to Albert, who soon links Eddings’s death with his own investigation into the suspicious suicide of a financier. As the two poke around for further connections between their cases, they come to fear that whoever killed Eddings and the financier may have also been involved with a deadly incident at a children’s variety show that claimed the lives of nearly 200 young theatergoers more than a decade ago. Walsh once again seamlessly combines vivid period detail, clever plotting, and thoughtful characterizations. This series merits a long run. (Mar.)