The Berkeley Square Affair
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- €10.99
Publisher Description
An alternate version of Hamlet may hold more than literary secrets…
Ensconced in the comfort of their elegant home in Berkeley Square, Malcolm and Suzanne Rannoch have seemingly escaped the perilous life of intrigue that they led during the Napoleonic Wars. Malcolm, once an intelligence agent, is now a member of Parliament, and Suzanne is one of the city's most sought-after hostesses. But when playwright Simon Tanner climbs through their library window late one night, rain-soaked and bloody, the Rannochs are lured back into the dangerous world they thought they had left behind…
Simon had in his possession a manuscript that may be a lost version of Hamlet, and the thieves who attacked him were prepared to kill for it. But the Rannochs suspect there's more at stake than a literary gem. The script may conceal the identity of a Bonapartist spy—along with secrets that could force Malcolm and Suzanne to abandon their newfound peace and confront their own tortured past. . .
"Shimmers like the finest salons in Vienna." —Deborah Crombie
"Meticulous, delightful, and full of surprises." —Tasha Alexander
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Grant's unfocused fourth Regency mystery (after 2013's The Paris Affair), Malcolm and Suzanne Rannoch, ostensibly retired from espionage work and living in London society, are enjoying domestic pleasures when their friend Simon Tanner appears on their doorstep, the victim of a brutal robbery. Though the value of the document he was carrying possibly a newly discovered version of Shakespeare's Hamlet would explain the crime, a visit from Lord Carfax, Malcolm's onetime spymaster, suggests another motive. Carfax believes the script holds coded clues to a security breach that led to needless deaths during the Irish rebellion decades before and that Malcolm's late father might have been involved. As her husband investigates, Suzanne discovers that secrets she has hidden even from him could be revealed, destroying their marriage. Grant's gifts shine in depictions of the couple and their suspenseful emotional tensions. But the diffuse plot is too reliant on distant backstory to provide effective drama.
