With Murder on Black Swan Lane, Andrea Penrose launches a new series featuring the satirical cartoonish Charlotte Sloane and the irascible Earl of Wrexford, set in Regency London. In this debut novel, Sloane and Wrexford team up to defeat a criminal mastermind before the villain succeeds in framing the earl for a series of ghastly murders.
Murder on Black Swan Lane kicks off with a prologue featuring two characters meeting in mysterious circumstances before one kills the other with acid and a knife to the throat. The prologue gives way to Wrexford being questioned by a Bow Street Runner about his whereabouts the night before. He and the victim had been trading increasingly angry words in the newspapers. Meanwhile, Charlotte Sloane, in her guise of cartoonist A.J. Quill, reveals in her newest work that she knows far more than anyone should about the details of the murder.
After Wrexford tracks Sloane down with a mix of bribery and curiously talented servants, the two strike a bargain to share information in order to track down the killer. The more I read, the more I was enthralled by the mystery and the characters. It was clear from the prologue that the central crime would involve some flimflammery about alchemy, but I very much enjoyed the way Penrose grounded the weird with the pragmatically criminal as the plot developed. I also appreciated the sparks between the highly independent investigators. I don’t mean romantic sparks (although Penrose laid some groundwork there for future stories). Rather, I mean sparks between clashing world views. Wrexford swears by logic and physical evidence. Sloane is more intuitive and relies on her wide learning and artist’s eye to figure out what’s missing in the gaps between the evidence.
The book has clear hints that there will be more to come (even setting up future plots here and here). The partnership between Sloane and Wrexford is wonderful reading, mostly because of their senses of humor and mutual inability to suffer fools. I definitely plan on reading future entries in this series.
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley for review consideration. It will be released 27 June 2017.