Mortal Arts

· A Lady Darby Mystery Book 2 · Sold by Penguin
4.0
12 reviews
Ebook
384
Pages
Eligible

About this ebook

From the national bestselling author of The Anatonmist's Wife comes the second historical mystery featuring enigmatic sleuth Lady Kiera Darby.

Scotland, 1830. Lady Kiera Darby is no stranger to intrigue—in fact, it seems to follow wherever she goes. After her foray into murder investigation, Kiera must journey to Edinburgh with her family so that her pregnant sister can be close to proper medical care. But the city is full of many things Kiera isn’t quite ready to face: the society ladies keen on judging her, her fellow investigator—and romantic entanglement—Sebastian Gage, and ultimately, another deadly mystery.

Kiera’s old friend Michael Dalmay is about to be married, but the arrival of his older brother—and Kiera’s childhood art tutor—William, has thrown everything into chaos. For ten years Will has been missing, committed to an insane asylum by his own father. Kiera is sympathetic to her mentor’s plight, especially when rumors swirl about a local girl gone missing. Now Kiera must once again employ her knowledge of the macabre and join forces with Gage in order to prove the innocence of a beloved family friend—and save the marriage of another…

Ratings and reviews

4.0
12 reviews
Alison Robinson
December 7, 2021
On their way to Edinburgh Lady Kiera Darby, her sister and brother-in-law are asked to stop off at Dalmay Castle by Lord Cromarty's aunt. There, Kiera discovers that William, Lord Dalmay, is not as she had always understood missing, presumed dead, but had spent the last decade in a mental institution, forced there by his father, the previous Lord Dalmay because of (frankly) his PTSD about his time fighting in the Napoleonic Wars. Kiera is also surprised to see Sebastian Gage staying with the Dalmays, the two of them have barely spoken since they became so close during their investigation of Lady Godwin's murder. Everyone is concerned that Lord Dalmay is dangerously insane, his former doctor has spread stories about him murdering a young woman in the asylum, however Kiera has such fond memories of William teaching her painting when she was just fifteen years old that she can't believe he has changed. After all, William was badly affected by his experiences back then but nothing led her to think he would be violent. Then a local gentlewoman goes missing, at first thought drowned, but everyone is worried that William may have escaped his guards and done her some harm. Desperate to clear William's name, Kiera and Sebastian once again join reluctant forces to solve a mystery. Oh dear, Sebastian Gage is doing the push-me, pull-me thing with Kiera (apologies if I spell her name wrong, I know someone called Keira and I find it very difficult to change the order of the E and I for these reviews) that I so disliked in the Verity Kent books. I can only speculate that he is engaged/promised to someone else or his Daddy doesn't like Kiera. Also, and I know the book is set in a time when men routinely had the right to treat women like children, I really found Gage's condescending attitude to Kiera grating. Also, I am sorry to say that I found the premise of this book wholly predictable and obvious from the start, I know that I have either read or seen something very similar (was it a Buffy episode?) so I found the obliviousness of Kiera and Gage plain irritating.
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Dina Latashi
August 21, 2014
Good read.
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About the author

Anna Lee Huber is the RITA and Daphne award–nominated author of the Lady Darby Mysteries, including As Death Draws Near, A Study in Death, A Grave Matter, Mortal Arts, and The Anatomist’s Wife. She is a summa cum laude graduate of Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she majored in music and minored in psychology. She currently resides in Indiana with her family and is hard at work on the next Lady Darby novel.

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