At any rate, here is the charming review Kirkus just gave WHERE THE DEAD LIE. They think the book is a tad "bleak." Because Kirkus has a tendency to give away too much, I have edited it slightly. But be sure not to miss the last couple of sentences; they're real charmers!
In Regency England, a viscount pursues the sadistic killer of
London's most vulnerable denizens. Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, and his
former comrade in arms, surgeon Paul Gibson, have seen more than their share of
violent death in wartime. But neither one can look calmly at the body of Benji
Thatcher, a street urchin who [was tortured and murdered]. The death of one more homeless pickpocket is unlikely to cause a
stir among most of fashionable London, but Gibson and Sebastian specialize in
solving crimes that others can't or won't.
Sebastian's wife, Hero, is a social
reformer who's writing a series of articles about the poor of London, and while
she interviews some of the street children who knew Benji, Sebastian uses the
testimony of an old soldier who saw and interrupted someone digging Benji's
grave as a starting point for finding out what happened not just to Benji, but
to a number of other homeless children who've disappeared. The owner of a
secondhand store helps direct Sebastian to a brothel catering to clients who
like their prostitutes young, and contraband copies of a book by the Marquis de
Sade bring Sebastian closer to identifying the person responsible for the
pitiful collections of children's bones buried near the shallow grave meant for
Benji. Unfortunately, Sebastian's suspects—an actor, a French count, a
dissolute marquis' heir about to marry into Sebastian's family, and an even
more highly connected person who's also a relative of Hero—all have alibis.
But
Sebastian's power-hungry father-in-law presents the biggest obstacle to his
sleuthing in a tale that, despite top boots and tall hats, velvet spencers and
gowns à la grecque, and even a cat named Mr. Darcy, is a far cry from the world
of Jane Austen. Harris (When Falcons Fall, 2016, etc.) is as determined as her
lead couple to explore London's underbelly. Hold onto your carriage strap: the
tangle of familial, criminal, and political conflict makes for bleak reading.