Penny Richards in Though This be Madness explores Lilly Long's career as a nineteenth century Pinkerston detective. The second book in the series maintains the pace and plot strengths of the first in the series. Lilly works undercover as domestic workers with Cade, a disgraced Pinkerton with a second chance, Their mission is to rescue a woman put in an insane asylum by her second husband who now controls her family fortune. Nothing is what it seems. Read and enjoy.

I enjoyed this second addition to the mystery series. The characters and plot were well crafted and fun to read. It's the perfect mystery to take on vacation or read on the beach. It's light and easy to follow yet very entertaining. I highly recommend this book!

Penny Richards has done it again!! She's provided an excellent addition to the historical mystery genre. Lily Long is a spunky, dedicated woman who is a role model for anyone who wants to serve justice. Richards is particularly good at portraying the feelings of a woman dealing with those who think women aren't capable of anything beyond the traditional roles assigned to them by men. Lily's resistence to such attitudes makes her an able partner for more experienced Pinkerton agent Cade McShane. The addition of Cade's young friend Jenks adds extra spice to their partnership. Richards is definitely on my "must read" author list after the first two books in this series, and I really look forward to finding out what Lily and Cade do next. Thanks to Kensington and NetGalley for giving me access to this ARC!!

Lily Long is back again. She has a new assignment. The only problem is that she has to partner with Cade and they don't like each other. But an assignment is an assignment. Posing as a married couple will be difficult but they will do it.

Kensington Books and Net Galley let me read this book for review (thank you). It is being published today.

I enjoyed the first novel I read about Lily. She's an interesting character. After her husband left her and stole all her money she has no desire to have anything more to do with men. But she's a pretty good actress and she'll act like she and Cade have a relationship.

He's not any happier about it than she is. If he hadn't gotten drunk and in a bar fight, he'd be allowed to work alone. But he's still on probation and Lily needs more training. It's his burden to live with. As if that's not enough, a young boy he befriended comes along on the trip following and he has to take care of him, too.

What they are investigating is whether the wife of the household is really crazy or if she is just being put away to remove her from her money. What they find is a hot bed of problems. As they start talking to the servants and members of the family, they notice that the attorney is a sexual predator. The doctor isn't really a doctor. And most of the men aren't what they seem.

It's a dangerous game being played in the name of greed and not everyone gets out alive. This story was also a very good read and Cade and Lily are finding they enjoy working together. Even the young boy helps with the case. This isn't a conventional story and I like it!

Thanks Kensington Books and netgalley for this ARC.

Seeing New Orleans thru Lilly's eyes is like reading about it for the first time. Penny Richards has a gift with words that makes this series fresh, forceful, and never quaint. We feel the burn of Lilly's ambition for justice and her maturity in this novel through the partnership thrust upon her.

DNF at about 50%. I really appreciate the opportunity to read this title, but I reached a breaking point with these characters. It starts off with a promising concept and intriguing investigation setup, but by the halfway point my patience with the mystery and the characters ran out. I have not read the first book in the series so perhaps my enjoyment suffered for not having that context. The author does do a good job of recapping key events of the first book, but the callbacks -- particularly to how horrible Lilly's husband was -- became repetitive after a while. The heroine wavers between being TSTL and profusely apologetic to her arrogant male partner/love interest for every misstep she makes (and there are plenty), that I can't decide if I want to slap her or feel bad for her. The fact that the street smart boy who tags along for their investigation is also terrible to her for most of the book and piles on more critiques of her seemed unnnecessary. I understand that Cade has his own baggage but he was not very appealing as a love interest for Lilly.

Also, the mystery unfolds at a glacial pace. So much attention is paid to the chores Lilly and Cade are performing that the mystery takes a back seat for almost a third of the story. Perhaps the story will work better for readers with more patience, but unfortunately it did not work for me.

Thank you again for the opportunity to read this (notwithstanding my review).

Lilly Long strives to prove herself at the Pinkerton Detective Agency. Her acting background has been beneficial but posing as a married working couple with Cade McShane is not the direction she was hoping for. Since McShane is on thin ice with his employers, he doesn’t express his displeasure being paired with the former actress. However, the two soon put their differences aside to figure out why the matriarch of the wealthy Fortenot family suspects her granddaughter’s husband is up to no good. As the pair go about their day-to-day duties, they begin to piece together a dark picture of voodoo, infidelity, and deceit.

Richards creates a realistic look at the power men held over women, well into the late 19th century and the deep seated traditions that drove the south. Into the ugly realism of fabricated illness she adds the hierarchy the privileged held over the less fortunate in their employ. To spice up the story and break the intensity, Richards tosses in a little added spice of romantic tension and adolescent shenanigans that bring this second installment of the Lilly Long series to a nice simmer. A good one to put on your To Read list.

Chicago, early 1800s. One of the Pinkerton agency's only female agents, Lilly is sent to New Orleans to figure out if a young widow from a wealthy family has been unjustly committed to an insane asylum but her new husband. While Lilly is excited to get a new assignment, she isn't so happy to learn that she will not only be partnered with Cade McShane, but that they will have to pose as husband and wife.

I enjoyed the first book in this series and was really looking forward to the next installment. Maybe I was expecting too much, or maybe this just wasn't the right book for me at this point in time, but I found this story hard to get into. I found most of the characters hard to like, even Lilly, who seemed to have trouble accepting that she doesn't yet know everything about being an agent and that she and McShane were assigned to work *together, which means sharing information and observations. The family at the heart of the story was also hard to like, and when I don't care about the characters, I generally end up not caring about the book as well. I stuck with this and finished it to find out what was going on, and I'll still look for the next in the series – but maybe not with such high hopes.

3.5 stars

This is a readable cozy with an unusual premise. Former actress Lilly Long and her investigative partner Cade McShane are Pinkerton operatives in the 19th century post Civil War U.S. And unlikely and unwilling partners they are. Lilly is promising but inexperienced, and McShane has to atone for an earlier misbehavior, so they are yoked together in this 2nd series entry. Naturally, they are both drawn to and antagonistic to each other. They each carry substantial emotional baggage and stubborn independent natures.

The pair has been sent to discover whether a New Orleans doctor who has his wealthy wife confined to an asylum is a manipulative fortune hunter or a concerned husband. Long and McShane, accompanied by a streetwise 10-year old, pose as a working class Irish couple and gain employment as servants at the family mansion.

Almost immediately it is clear that all is not right in the household. Several sub plots run through the mystery. It felt like a fair amount of modern sensibility had been implausibly inserted here, but it didn't detract from the overall enjoyment of this book. A quick and entertaining read.

I was provided with an ARC via Net Galley in return for my honest review.