A Terribly Nasty Business
A Beatrice Steele Novel
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- 9,99 €
Description de l’éditeur
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • London provides fabulously deadly opportunities for a fledgling inspector in the twisty follow-up to Julia Seales’s bestselling debut, A Most Agreeable Murder, hailed by People as a “delightful cocktail . . . of wit, hilarity, and suspense!”
After achieving her lifelong dream of solving a murder, bringing a killer to justice, and proving she is not, in fact, a morbid creep, Beatrice Steele feels like everything is finally falling into place. She’s traded her etiquette-obsessed community of Swampshire for the big city of London, accompanied by her ever-trusty chaperone, Miss Bolton. They’ve settled in a lovely neighborhood, Sweetbriar, known for its proximity to the Sweet Majestic theater, picturesque pleasure gardens, and an unfortunate infestation of flying squirrels. But Beatrice’s favorite part is that Sweetbriar is also home to DS Investigations, the new office she opened with the prickly, annoyingly logical Inspector Drake to solve the city’s brutally thrilling crimes.
However, nothing is turning out how Beatrice imagined it would. Sir Huxley, famed gentleman inspector and Beatrice’s former crush, is still considered the real investigator in London, so the only cases left for Beatrice and Drake are lost pets and spectacles. Not that Beatrice has much time for crime-solving anyway, as her mother still expects her to find an eligible (rich) husband to protect their family from destitution. Beatrice is struggling to balance all the demands on her and begins to wonder if she can become a true detective in a city that feels full of false promises.
That is until a string of murders thrusts Beatrice and Drake into the center of a scandal that pits the neighborhood’s wealthiest against the arts community, spreading fear and chaos throughout the city. As they follow the trail through bewildering ballrooms, secretive shops, and odd operas, Beatrice must survive threats to her partnership, her business, and her place in society to break the case—before it’s too late.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Screenwriter Seales follows A Most Agreeable Murder with a jaunty sequel that finds Regency era sleuth Beatrice Steele swapping the provincial environs of Swampshire for London's hustle and bustle. Though she still seeks a rich husband to supplement her family's rapidly waning fortune, Beatrice has legitimized her detective work by forming a PI agency with Insp. Vivek Drake. The dashing Sir Lawrence Huxley reigns as London's preeminent detective, however, and handles all the city's most important cases, leaving Beatrice and Drake to deal mostly with clients who've lost cats, dogs, or eyeglasses. Everything changes on the night that Walter Shrewsbury, a prominent member of the Neighborhood Association of Gentlemen Sweetbriarians, is murdered at the Rose, an exclusive private club. Sir Huxley is convinced that opera star Percival Nash is the killer, but Nash, who maintains his innocence, hires Beatrice and Drake to find the real culprit. Seales doesn't stray too far from what worked in the first book, probing the strict class and gender divides of Regency England while keeping the plot moving at a steady clip. This series deserves a long run.
