I absolutely love a good historical mystery thriller and this one fits the bill. I believe this story is the sixth in the series and I started with this one first. Why am I always doing that? Sigh. I don’t know. Well, I’m happy to report that after reading this book I want to go back and read the first five.

Eighteenth century anatomy interest me in several areas. Particularly the dissection of the human bodies and their analysis on how they died and perhaps leading to why and other considerations from scientific purview. The author certainly has a lot of material to work with when writing about crimes and mysteries in the eighteen-century due to the general public’s discovery of deaths through the publication of newspapers and such.

Dr. Thomas Silkstone is a fascinating character to say the least. He used scientist evidence and clues to help solve crimes. Which is refreshing when looking at how crimes are often concluded by ignorance, no evidence, convenience, mob rule and pure speculation throughout history. It makes me shudder to think how many innocent people have been convicted of crimes they did not comment and the punishments and the lifetime imprisonments they have endured.
I must admit, I was fascinated with the aspect of Silkstone’s method in investigating the crimes commented more so than his romantic involvement with Lydia- at first, I couldn’t see the attraction. Towards the end, she grew on me a little despite being in the background quite a bit more than I expected.

In this story, Lydia seemed to have the worse luck and finds herself in continual trouble at every turn. As I read this story I couldn’t help wonder if this was the case in the previous books. I cannot attest to the development of Lydia’s character since I haven’t read the other books in the series but I have my suspicions that she may be portrayed as a fragile woman and constantly needs recusing-you know, “Damsel in distress”. Towards the end of the story, there was an instance where Lydia was in the presence of Silkstone’s colleagues and one of the colleague’s brother discussing the crime(s) and their wary of Lydia’s “sensibilities” irked me a bit as they chose their words carefully or omitted them in her presence. Was it out of the “polite society” of the time, or was it because men considered women the “weaker sex” and felt the need to shelter them? Or it could be just plain out of respect for her that they guarded their tongue. I’m still undecided on that score. I will say that death was all too common during those times as it is in our century and women are made of tougher stuff than we are often given credit for in many situations. I can assure you this is not a slight on the author’s story-telling what-so-ever. On the contrary, she portrayed that quite well in the scene and has given me a lot of food for thought about certain topics and cultural norms when it comes to stuff like this. Again, keep in mind I'm not too certain of Lydia's characterization.

I must say there were a lot of characters to keep up with and at times I was frustrated with that fact. Nonetheless, this story was well written, entertaining and a brilliant historical mystery read. As the clues were stacking up, the danger escalating, there was very little left to chance as Silkstone raced to solve the mystery before more people were murdered.

I must caution the reader and mention that there are gruesome details in how the crimes were commented. Beware of that fact.
Overall, the author does well in presenting multiple motivations for murder to have you fully immersed in the story to find out the conclusion.
Without a doubt, historical fiction mystery lovers will enjoy this adventure.

Stephanie Hopkins

I'm such a sucker for stories set in the 18th century! And I love the Dr. Thomas Silkstone series books by Harris, so this book was a delight to read for me.

Lydia and Thomas ce again partner to investigate a murder mystery, this time centering on some stolen artifacts from India, which happens because of the rules surrounding the 18th century English colonization of India. Racism features prominently, as well as disdain for the "other."

The mystery is well-hidden and revealed effectively, as with all Harris's novels, and I enjoyed the tension between Lydia and Thomas as it continues to develop.

Ladies, anatomists and precious stones.

The first two pages are terrific. But unfortunately, I was not able to hold my attention to the rest of the story. Might be my personal nitpick, though.

If you enjoy old-fashioned period mysteries, you might like this. I haven't read any of the other books in the series, but if you read and enjoyed them, I'm sure you'll like this. It's perfectly well-executed, but it couldn't hold my attention for more than a couple chapters at a time. I'm usually a pretty fast reader, but this book felt like it took years to get through because I just could not bring myself to take any interest in anything that happened. The mystery wasn't interesting, the characters weren't interesting, nothing about it was actually interesting for me.

It isn't even bad in any significant way, just painfully dull. It wasn't even interesting enough to hate.