Title: Who Buries the Dead Series: Sebastian St. Cyr #10
Author: C.S. Harris
Published: March 3, 2015
Genre(s): Historical Fiction, Mystery/Thriller
Page Count: 334
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:London, 1813. The vicious decapitation of Stanley Preston, a wealthy, socially ambitious plantation owner, at Bloody Bridge draws Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, into a macabre and increasingly perilous investigation. The discovery near the body of an aged lead coffin strap bearing the inscription “King Charles, 1648” suggests a link between this killing and the beheading of the deposed seventeenth-century Stuart monarch. Equally troubling, the victim’s kinship to the current Home Secretary draws the notice of Sebastian’s powerful father-in-law, Lord Jarvis, who will exploit any means to pursue his own clandestine ends.
Working in concert with his fiercely independent wife, Hero, Sebastian finds his inquiries taking him from the wretched back alleys of Fish Street Hill to the glittering ballrooms of Mayfair as he amasses a list of suspects who range from an eccentric Chelsea curiosity collector to the brother of an unassuming but brilliantly observant spinster named Jane Austen.
But as one brutal murder follows another, it is the connection between the victims and ruthless former army officer Sinclair, Lord Oliphant, that dramatically raises the stakes. Once, Oliphant nearly destroyed Sebastian in a horrific wartime act of carnage and betrayal. Now the vindictive former colonel might well pose a threat not only to Sebastian but to everything—and everyone—Sebastian holds most dear.
Sebastian St. Cyr mysteries can always be counted on to be solid reads, and Who Buries the Dead was no different. It was perhaps not my favorite in the series, but I liked it quite a lot all the same. C.S. Harris has a great eye for both developing characterization and exciting plotlines, which make this series perennially awesome.
Who Buries the Dead features a fairly complex murder mystery that introduces Sebastian and Hero to the newly-famous novelist Jane Austen and her brother, as well as a conundrum regarding Charles I’s missing head. Throw in some ghosts from Sebastian’s past and some nice family scenes between our favorite Devlins, and we’ve got a recipe for a great read.
The biggest thing I didn’t like was how…fanfictiony the Jane Austen aspect was. Who Buries the Dead includes a lot of people who Austen apparently “knew” (according to this fictional account) who are so obviously prototypes of Austen’s future characters. There’s an Anne Elliott who’s in love with a Captain Wentworth type who turns out to actually be Mr. Wickham/Mr. Willoughby. There’s a family of five daughters and one of those daughters is proposed to by a man of 10 thousand pounds a year. There’s a slave-owning gentleman. The “nods” to Austen’s oeuvre were just…too much. Too much, I say.
But, I mean, it’s not as if Jane Austen was really a huge player in this novel. And regardless, this is still an interesting, well-crafted mystery with one of my favorite fictional ladies ever, and a protagonist with a very complex and nuanced backstory. I’m quite pleased with Who Buries the Dead, and I continue to eagerly anticipate future volumes in the series.
