Another day, another batch of St. Cyr book reviews 😉 With this post I’ve more or less caught up with the series; there is of course the new book that came out this past spring but I’m in no rush to pick it up as it’s still in hardback. Anyway, without further ado…

+++

Why Kings Confess
By: C.S. Harris
Format/Source: Mass market paperback; my purchase

Regency England, January 1813: When a badly injured Frenchwoman is found beside the mutilated body of Dr. Damion Pelletan in one of London’s worst slums, Sebastian finds himself caught in a high-stakes tangle of murder and revenge. Although the woman, Alexi Sauvage, has no memory of the attack, Sebastian knows her all too well from an incident in his past—an act of wartime brutality and betrayal that nearly destroyed him.

As the search for the killer leads Sebastian into a treacherous web of duplicity, he discovers that Pelletan was part of a secret delegation sent by Napoleon to investigate the possibility of peace with Britain. Despite his powerful father-in-law’s warnings, Sebastian plunges deep into the mystery of the “Lost Dauphin”, the boy prince who disappeared in the darkest days of the French Revolution, and soon finds himself at lethal odds with the Dauphin’s sister—the imperious, ruthless daughter of Marie Antoinette—who is determined to retake the French crown at any cost.

With the murderer striking ever closer, Sebastian must battle new fears about Hero’s health and that of their soon-to-be born child. When he realizes the key to their survival may lie in the hands of an old enemy, he must finally face the truth about his own guilt in a past he has found too terrible to consider…

Read More

I find myself blitzing through the St. Cyr mystery series once I hit my stride in my re-reads. Now that I’ve successfully re-read the books I’ve read previously and reacquainted myself with the characters, I’m now reading the next two installments that had been sitting on my shelf for a while now, waiting for their time to be read 🙂

+++

What Remains of Heaven
By: C.S. Harris
Format/Source: Mass market paperback; my purchase

The latest request for help from Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin–from the Archbishop of Canterbury, no less–is undeniably intriguing: The bodies of two men have been found in an ancient crypt, their violent deaths separated by decades. One is the Bishop of London, the elderly Archbishop’s favored but controversial successor. The identity of the other seems lost in time, although his faded velvet attire marks him as gentleman of the eighteenth century.

To Sebastian’s consternation, the last person to see the Bishop alive was Miss Hero Jarvis, a woman whose already strained relationship with St. Cyr has been complicated by a brief, unexpectedly passionate encounter. It also soon becomes obvious that her powerful father has reasons of his own for wanting the Bishop out of the way. In an investigation that leads from the back alleys of Smithfield to the power corridors of whitehall, Sebastian amasses a list of suspects that ranges from some of the Prince Regent’s closest cronies to William Franklin, embittered son of famous American patriot Ben Franklin. Each step Sebastian takes toward the killer brings him closer to a devastating truth that could ultimately force him to question who–and what–he really is.

Read More