"Dangerous to Know" by Tasha Alexander

Publisher: Minotaur Books
Page count: 320 pages
Rating: 2 stars
Date begun: November 11th, 2010
Date finished: November 13th, 2010

WARNING! CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE PREVIOUS BOOKS IN THE LADY EMILY SERIES!

Lady Emily Hargreaves is in Normandy, trying to recover from her near-death experience during her honeymoon in Constantinople. Her loving husband, Colin, has taken her to his mother's house to recuperate and regain her strength, but when she comes across a brutally murdered young woman while out riding, it is clear that the area is not as peaceful as they had hoped. The girl has been brutalized a manner reminiscent of the Jack the Ripper murders a few years back in London, and Colin and the local police are concerned that the killer may not be satisfied with just one victim.

Emily is troubled with guilt and grief after losing their unborn baby when she was nearly killed saving a young girl from a brutal killer. There are rumours in the area that the ghost of a motherless girl haunts the countryside, and when Emily starts hearing the cries of a child, and occasional glimpses of a little girl with a blue ribbon, she starts to doubt her own sanity. Her relationship with her mother-in-law is less than excellent, as the formidable Mrs. Hargreaves clearly feels Emily's unworthy of her son and treats her with a cold disdain. The appearance of her old friend, Cecile du Lac, and the re-appearance in the area of the gentleman thief, Sebastian Capet, cheer her spirits to some extent, but she cannot rest until she manages to solve the murder of the poor girl she found.

It turns out that the girl, Edith, had escaped from a mental asylum, and her mother is an old school friend of Cecile's. When they go to talk to the family, it is clear that poor Edith lived a dramatic life, and had also heard the cries of a little girl and seen a ghostly child in the days before she was committed. Her twin brother Laurent is furious about the whole thing, and his brooding and obsessive closeness with his sister seem very suspicious. Colin seems reluctant to let Emily continue the detective efforts she has previously reveled in, worried that she will be put in danger yet again. He wants her safe and protected, and this causes tension in their marriage.

Dangerous to Know is the fifth Lady Emily mystery, and just as good and suspenseful a read as the previous ones. I must admit that I was distressed by the marital tension between Colin and Emily, and while his reactions were completely understandable, his heavy-handed ordering about of Emily made me unhappy. Although even at his most controlling, he would have been super progressive as a Victorian husband, letting his wife study ancient languages and gallivant about the countryside with known art thieves, it felt wrong for him to try to limit Emily's involvement with the detecting. I also knew that things would probably sort themselves out in the end, and their marriage would be as close and comforting as it was in the previous novel.

CBR2 Book 94: "Tears of Pearl" by Tasha Alexander

Publisher: Minotaur Books
Page count: 352 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Date begun: October 15th, 2010
Date finished: October 16th, 2010

WARNING! CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS FOR A FATAL WALTZ, THE THIRD LADY EMILY MYSTERY!

Lady Emily Hargreaves, formerly Ashton, is on her honeymoon with her beloved husband, Colin. Having earned the disappointment of both Lady Emily's formidable mother and Queen Victoria herself after eloping to Greece to get married rather than have a lavish society wedding in the Queen's own chapel, the couple are enjoying a trip on the Orient Express when a British diplomat keels over at their dining table. The Hargreaves help him, and it turns out that he simply misjudged the dose of his sleeping medication, but he is nonetheless very grateful, and promises to help them when they arrive in Constantinople.

An avid study of ancient history and Greek, as well as an amateur sleuth who has solved two murders, including that of her first husband, the Viscount Ashton, Lady Emily wants to see Troy and Constantinople and other famous landmarks. Her husband, a trusted Intelligence Agent for the Crown, wants nothing more than to keep his wife out of danger and pamper her as much as possible. This proves difficult when on one of their first evenings in Constantinople, a harem girl is found murdered, and she is none other than the missing daughter of the diplomat the Hargreaves befriended on the train, stolen from her family by bandits when she was only three years old. The father, who has spent most of his life since her disappearance searching for her, is devastated.

As the girl is half-English, Colin Hargreaves is granted permission to investigate the murder. But as most of the suspect live within the Sultan's harem, Colin has no choice but to let Emily take part in the investigation. She can go where he cannot, and question those he will not be allowed access to. In the course of the investigation, Emily discovers that her preconceptions about life in the Ottoman empire are not at all what she was led to believe, but that there is still a lot of intrigue, and more than one person had a motive to kill the young woman. What at first appears to be sea-sickness may also turn out to be a natural result of her recent matrimony, but remembering her aunt's death during childbirth, and reading the letters from her best friend who is currently experiencing a very difficult pregnancy, Emily is not at all certain she is ready to become a mother. That is, of course, if she survives to unveil the killer.

The Lady Emily Asthon novels may seem very similar to Deanna Raybourn's Lady Julia Gray series, and on the surface, there share many things in common. Both are mystery novels, set in Victorian times, featuring daughters of Earls, who are both widowed in the first novel of the series. Both widows solve the murders of their husbands, and go on to find love with men who they share their investigations with. Yet the tone and style of the books are very different, and having read the fourth installments of both series back to back, I am struck by the difference between them as well. Colin and Emily do not have the stormy and tempestuous relationship that Julia and Brisbane have, theirs is a much more tranquil and in some ways more romantic partnership. While in Raybourn's books, Brisbane was reluctant to enter into a romantic relationship with Julia because of their difference in social status and wealth, it is Colin who pursues Emily for two novels before she finally accepts and becomes his wife.

Still, fans of one author will undoubtedly enjoy the books of the other. Any fan of historical mystery could do much worse than pick up the books of either Tasha Alexander or Deanna Raybourn, all four books in each of the authors' series have been excellent. Tasha Alexander's fifth Lady Emily novel is out in hardback in about a week, and I am not sure I can wait until it is released in paperback to buy it.