Murder in the Pleasure Gardens

After one too many distasteful meals at his usual gentleman's club, Beau Brummell opens his own named Watier's. It isn't long before the club's exquisite cuisine and high gambling stakes attract London's aristocracy to Beau's doors. But the fashionable establishment becomes embroiled in scandal when Lieutenant Nevill, inexperienced in games of chance, believes he's been cheated at cards by government official Theobald Jacombe. The confrontation escalates when Jacombe makes off-color remarks about the lieutenant's intended, infuriating the young officer into challenging him to a duel.

Before Beau can talk Nevill out of this course of action, Jacombe is found murdered at Vauxhall's Pleasure Gardens — and the lieutenant is detained as the most likely suspect. Convinced of Nevill's innocence, the master of style must deduce who would want to kill a respected member of the Home Office with a supposedly spotless reputation.

The fourth puzzle for real-life dandy Beau Brummell — clever, compassionate friend to the Prince of Wales in Regency England — begins in Watier's, the London gambling club he owns. When young Lieutenant Nevill lost a fortune at play, the generous Brummell forgave the debt. Now Nevill's in even hotter water. In response to his accusation that respected Home Office official Theobald Jacombe has cheated at cards, Jacombe has challenged him to a duel. The evening before the event is to take place, an unknown party makes it unnecessary by shooting Jacombe to death at Vauxhall Gardens, an entertainment complex, and Nevill is arrested for the killing. Beau, convinced of his innocence, works to uncover Jacombe's deeply hidden unsavory past and its connection to Molly, Nevill's beloved. While she's waiting for Nevill to carry her off, Molly lives and works at Haven of Hope, a women's shelter run by Beau's close friend Lydia Lavender, whose policeman father is in charge of the case. Before it's all over, Nevill's nasty grandfather will become a second murder victim and Beau will draw a confession from a surprising killer. Relaxed storytelling replete with clever plotting, vivid character portraits, and period details.