I’ve fallen hard for C.S. Harris’s mystery series set in England during the time of Mad King George and his wastrel, indolent, pleasure-besotted son. I’ve read three of the dozen and don’t intend to stop because they’re gripping for me as a reader and inspiring for me as a writer.
Harris fields a remarkable sleuth, Viscount Devlin, who’s as powerful, fast, and furious as Jason Bourne—though more sophisticated, of course, since he’s an aristocrat. With extraordinary reflexes, Devlin can escape just about anyone, take an amazing amount of physical punishment, and fight his way out of the nastiest traps. Devlin has “uncanny” amber eyes and can both see in the dark and hear things most people can’t. There’s nothing supernatural about his abilities, as Harris has blogged: they’re signs of a rare genetic syndrome that actually appears in her own family.
All of his gifts, plus his having served in the British army, make Devlin a perfect amateur sleuth and a dangerous adversary for anyone who’s committed a crime or is trying to stop him from solving one.
Harris excels at many things as a writer, but is especially good at setting her scene with perfectly-chosen period details and immersing readers by appealing to our senses. Here’s Devlin in one of many nasty parts of London at night in the first book of the series, What Angels Fear, which blends savage horror and political skullduggery:
Crowded by day by seamen and stevedores, the wharves after dark were a dangerous labyrinth patrolled by the river police and private guards hired by ship owners and trading companies desperate to control the swarms of thieves who could empty a warehouse or a ship’s hold in a night and slit a man’s throat for the coat on his back.
Sebastian seemed to have the riverfront to himself, moving through fog foul with the stench of salt and river sludge mingling with the odors of the nearby tanneries and soap factories. He could hear the slap of the incoming tide and the occasional muffled boom of distant fireworks from Tower Hill and the Bridge, but the thickness of the fog brought its own special hush to the world, magnifying the sound of his breathing until it grated loud and harsh in his ears.
This is typical of Harris’ craft: she focuses on particulars and the personal without ever letting readers forget where her characters are and how that specific milieu affects them. Her plots are devious and satisfying, and Viscount Devlin is so appealing and effective as a crime solver that even the authorities want to employ him. He also has a mysterious past which becomes clearer over the course of the series and gives him a Byronic touch. Women, of course, can’t resist him.
Readers of historical mysteries will likely feel the same way.
Lev Raphael is the prize-winning author of the historical novel Rosedale in Love, set during New York’s Gilded Age, and 24 other books in a wide range of genres.