Keeping Bad Company

by Caro Peacock

Overview

Private investigator Liberty Lane faces the most challenging case of her career in this absorbing mystery|London, 1840. Private investigator Liberty faces a conundrum when her younger brother Tom, an East India Company employee, is unexpectedly summoned to London to give evidence at an official enquiry into the murder of a wealthy merchant’s assistant, found with his throat cut en route to Bombay. A connection between the dead man and escalating rows with China over the lucrative opium trade has caused the government concern. Can Liberty solve a murder that took place six months previously almost five thousand miles away?|"This is a delightful mix of historical mystery and cozy with a strong woman protagonist"|"Liberty’s fifth case nicely balances the exotic history of the East India Company, whose private army rules India for British gain, with a mystery that offers a wide range of possible evildoers"

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781780102351
Publisher:	Severn House Publishers
Publication date:	02/01/2013
Series:	A Liberty Lane Mystery , #5
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
File size:	329 KB

Editorial Reviews

The return of Liberty Lane’s younger brother, Tom, to England from India, where he worked for the powerful East India Company, sets the stage for Peacock’s solid fifth Victorian historical featuring the female private inquiry agent (after 2011’s When the Devil Drives). Tom has been summoned to appear before a parliamentary committee looking into the company, especially its role in the opium trade. The inquiry inevitably focuses on the murder in India more than six months earlier of a man named Burton, the assistant of Alexander McPherson, a merchant who branched off from the East India Company to establish his own successful business. Against many obstacles, Lane must try to solve Burton’s murder. She gets a fresher trail to follow after a related killing in London. A well-executed plot compensates for a solution that’s somewhat less clever than others in the series. (June)

Publishers Weekly

The sudden return of Liberty Lane's brother Tom from India embroils them both in a delicate and dangerous case. Tom, an employee of the East India Company, is horrified to discover that his sister earns a living as a private investigator, but he needs her skills when a friend is killed. Tom is home to give evidence at an official enquiry into the murder of wealthy merchant Alexander McPherson's assistant, who was reportedly carrying a fortune in jewels. Tom's mentor, Mr. Griffiths, despises McPherson, who has made a fortune exporting opium to China in exchange for tea, and has written a pamphlet exposing the evil trade. When Griffiths is found dead, a supposed suicide, Tom is devastated, and Liberty immediately suspects that all is not what it seems. Although Griffiths' pamphlet has been stolen from the publishers, the original manuscript still exists, and Liberty learns a great deal from reading it. She becomes convinced that Griffiths' death is linked to an experience he had in India, where he was posted to a small but wealthy princedom along with a merchant and a soldier. The merchant was McPherson, but the soldier's identity is something Liberty must discover if she is to solve a case that becomes more complicated with each passing day. Liberty's fifth case (When the Devil Drives, 2011, etc.) nicely balances the exotic history of the East India Company, whose private army rules India for British gain, with a mystery that offers a wide range of possible evildoers.

Kirkus Reviews