"Murder at Queen's Landing" by Andrea Penrose

Yup, still enjoying this series.  A lot :-D  At this point, I'm fast friends with not just Charlotte Sloane and the Earl of Wrexford, but with all the regular side characters too.  And that means I delight in spending time with them between the pages of each book.

In this particular book, a clerk from the East India Company is murdered near the London harbor.  Nobody thinks much about it, as he's not an important person, but friends of his ask others to help, and they ask others, and soon it's up to Charlotte and Wrexford to untangle a complicated snarl of mathematics, machinery, monetary fraud, and murder.

Plus, Charlotte and Wrexford finally admit to themselves and each other that they care very deeply about one another.  One of the things I like best about this series (at least, the first four books that I have read) is that the romantic undercurrent is strong, but remains clean.  No one has hopped into bed with anyone else so far, which means I don't have to provide any caveats for my praise.

The pacing of this book is a bit slower than the previous three, but I appreciated that.  It spends a lot of time letting us experience Charlotte and Wrexford both coming to grips with how forming friendships and relationships of all sorts has helped them both grow too, and I loved that.

Particularly Good Bits:

Keeping secrets, however well intentioned, was fraught with peril.  Omissions tangled with misunderstandings, and suddenly trust, an oh-so-fragile bond to begin with, snapped (p 120).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for murder scenes that are not described in a grisly way, some violence, discussions of opium addiction, and a sprinkling of cuss words throughout.