A Pernicious Fabrication

Beatrice, Duchess of Kesgrave, will not do the bidding of Hell and Fury Hawes. It does not matter how difficult it is to find new murder mysteries to investigate, especially ones where the victim was stabbed with a chisel. She absolutely refuses to lift a finger to help him figure out who killed one of his associates.

Nothing will persuade her, not even discovering the identity of the victim.

It is the duke's cousin, son of the wretched Lord Myles, who also met an ugly death—bludgeoned with a candlestick—after going into business with the infamous crime lord, who rules over the worst rookery in London. Mortimer Matlock, a thwarted artist who stopped sculpting after his work was rejected repeatedly by the Royal Academy, was forging artifacts for Hawes's illegal antiquities scheme.

Joining forces with the King of Saffron Hill, it seems, is frequently fatal.

That is an unfortunate development, then, for Bea, whose husband is determined to find out who slayed his relative. The duke shares her distrust of Hawes, whose avowals of just wanting justice for the fallen man ring hollow to him too. He believes there is more to the situation than meets the eye.

Well, obviously, yes, thinks Bea, who is unable to smother her misgivings.

Surely, they're walking into a trap.