Part of Lady Darby Mysteries
First published 2020
Scotland, 1832. Lady Kiera Darby has been looking forward to this for weeks: finish the Duchess of Bowmont's portrait, attend her annual Twelfth Night celebration, and let someone else be the center of attention for once. She and her husband Sebastian Gage arrive at the duchess's grand Scottish estate ready to enjoy the festivities. Instead, they find a household pulled tight with tension and a string of forged notes circulating among the guests, stirring up trouble before the party even gets going. Then the situation turns fatal. A decomposing body turns up in the castle crypt, identified as the Earl of Helmsdale, the duchess's son-in-law, who everyone believed had left for Paris over a month ago. The duchess asks Kiera and Gage to investigate. They agree, but the walls close in quickly. The killer is almost certainly someone inside the house, possibly someone sitting at the same dinner table. Kiera has solved difficult cases before, but this one forces her to reckon with how far a person will go to keep the truth buried.
Genres: historical-fiction, mystery, crime, adult, thriller, detective
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, intricate, suspenseful, tension-filled
Tropes: amateur-sleuth, husband-wife-detective-team, locked-room-mystery, secrets-and-lies
Setting: Scotland, Scottish estate, castle crypt, Paris
Period: 1832, 19th century, Twelfth Night
384 pages · Paperback · Berkley
Content warnings: death, murder