Mortal Arts

Edinburgh, 1830. Lady Kiera Darby travels to the city with her family so her pregnant sister can stay near good medical care. Kiera has already been drawn into one murder investigation, and she arrives with little appetite for more trouble.

The city offers plenty. Society ladies are eager to judge her, and Sebastian Gage, her fellow investigator and a romantic complication, is close at hand. Kiera is not yet ready to face either.

Her old friend Michael Dalmay is about to marry when his older brother William turns up. William was Kiera's art tutor in childhood. For ten years he has been missing, shut away in an insane asylum by their own father, and his return throws the household into disorder.

Rumors spread that a local girl has disappeared, and suspicion falls toward William. Kiera sympathizes with her former mentor. She draws on her knowledge of the macabre and works with Gage to clear a beloved family friend, while trying to keep Michael's wedding from falling apart.

This is the second historical mystery featuring Kiera, and the investigation mixes detection with an unresolved romance.