Private-enquiry agent Cyrus Barker and his apprentice, Thomas Llewelyn (The Black Hand, 2011), are drawn into a diabolical cat-and-mouse game when Barker's arch-nemesis, Sebastian Nightwine, returns to London under diplomatic protection. Although he's warned away by Scotland Yard, Barker doesn't consider complying; he's certain that Nightwine murdered his brother years ago. Now Nightwine plants a witness who fingers Barker for a wealthy businessman's murder. Barker and Llewelyn go underground to avoid arrest, leading readers on a tour of the city's hideaways. When Nightwine draws first blood, Barker becomes more determined to orchestrate a final confrontation before his adversary can close his mysterious government deal and escape. Like Sherlock Holmes, Barker stays a step ahead of both criminals and coppers, but his methods rely on networking both underworld and society contacts, which treats readers to the full range of experiences in Victorian London. Well crafted and immersive, this a great addition to the to-be-read stacks of Thomas' fans, as well as fans of Alex Grecian and Anne Perry.--Tran, Christine Copyright 2014 Booklist

Thomas's witty sixth Victorian thriller featuring private enquiry agent Cyrus Barker (after 2008's The Black Hand) provides welcome glimpses of Barker's early life. As a 12-year-old in strife-torn China, Barker trusted Sebastian Nightwine-a British Army officer Barker met after the death of his missionary parents-with his older brother's life, and he was betrayed. Within hours of Nightwine's return to London, after years abroad, clues planted near the body of a murdered lord implicate Barker in the crime. Barker flees, dodging through London just steps ahead of Scotland Yard while seeking evidence to exonerate himself. Meanwhile, Barker's assistant, Thomas Llewelyn, encounters a violent gang and a beautiful assassin, both acting at Nightwine's command. It takes all of the two agents' considerable ingenuity to keep pace with this remorseless opponent in a battle full of surprises to the end. Readers will relish the appealing characters, clever twists, and colorful vision of late 19th-century London. Agent: Maria Carvainis, Maria Carvainis Agency. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Readers rejoice and scoundrels take heed-the streets of Victorian London just got a little safer now that Cyrus Barker and Thomas Llewelyn are back on the case! When Barker's archnemesis, the villainous and aristocratic Sebastian Nightwine, returns to London with a governmental pardon in his hand and revenge in his heart, the detective duo quickly find themselves on the wrong side of the law. Soon they are battling detectives, thugs, and the feminine wiles of one Miss Sofia Ilyanova in a race to clear -Barker's good name and foil Nightwine's most mercenary scheme to date. This reviewer missed her train stop two days in a row, so engrossed was she in Barker and Llewelyn's latest exploits! Although this is Tulsa librarian Thomas's (Some Danger Involved) sixth Barker and Llewelyn story, as his first book for Minotaur, it serves as a reintroduction to the series. It's a charming one at that, powered by well-developed character dynamics and a delightfully idiosyncratic cast of characters. Newcomers are sure to be absorbed into these warm, witty, and richly atmospheric historicals, and devotees will not be disappointed. VERDICT Recommended for historical mysteries enthusiasts, Anglophiles, and Sherlockians. Fans of Alex Grecian ("Scotland Yard's Murder Squad" series), Anthony Horowitz (The House of Silk) and Charles Todd ("Bess Crawford Mysteries") should take special note. [Library marketing; Minotaur First Edition Selection; Thomas was profiled by Wilda Williams in "Shelf Life," LJ 2/15/04.-Ed.]-Liv Hanson, Chicago (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

THE FIRST THING we learn about New York tabloid journalism from INVISIBLE CITY (Minotaur, $24.99) is that a body in Gowanus takes precedence over a brothel in Chinatown. Rebekah Roberts, the narrator of Julia Dahl's first novel, is fresh out of college and considers herself lucky to be working as a stringer for a bottom-feeding tabloid. Amateur sleuths with day jobs on a newspaper's staff are usually battle-weary veterans, so it's a treat to hear Rebekah and her friends trade horror stories about fighting for entry-level positions. Rebekah's journalistic skills - a combination of shrewdness, tenacity and subterfuge that Dahl describes in strong, blunt prose - produce a decent crime story on that body in Gowanus. The bald, naked woman hanging from the cage of a scrapyard crane turns out to be Rivka Mendelssohn, the wife of the owner of the yard. And Rebekah is disturbed to see men in Hasidic dress walk past the police to claim the body and carry it away in a private van, contaminating a crime scene and raising questions about police complicity. It isn't Rebekah's reportorial muscle but her identity as the daughter of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish woman (who abandoned her shortly after birth) that gains her entry into the Hasidic neighborhood of Borough Park, where the murder victim lived. "I kind of feel like I've been transported to a 1930s Polish village," she observes. Making her way in this insular world, Rebekah discovers the political power of the religious community. "The Hasidim vote, and most vote for who their rebbe tells them to vote for," she learns from a rebellious member of this patriarchal society. When she uncovers the story the police won't touch, it's a harrowing tale of the domestic violence, sexual abuse and mental illness compliant wives like Rivka learn to live with - or escape at their peril. ONCE MET, Bill Ogden is not soon forgotten. When Scott Phillips introduced this womanizing rogue in "Cottonwood," he was working as a professional photographer while consorting with killers and shady entrepreneurs in a rowdy Kansas frontier town in 1872. Some 20 years after running off to California with another man's wife, the rascal returned to the Great Plains to close that chapter of a lifelong adventure. Rather than pick up the narrative at this point, HOP ALLEY (Counterpoint, $25) fills in those missing years with another rollicking escapade, starting in 1873 in Omaha, a town with a reputation for "roughness, violence and general squalor." Bill is still bedding dangerous women and still making a living as a photographer; since he's also still wanted for murder in Kansas, he's calling himself Bill Sadlaw and keeping a low profile. But trouble knows where to find him, and he's soon involved in two shootings and a riot in the Chinese section of town known as Hop Alley. Phillips's juicy vernacular is perfect for Bill's louche narrative voice, and his easy, flowing style suits the loose morality and freewheeling spirit of a hotheaded young nation. THERE SHOULD BE a better word for a mystery that runs on for 500-plus pages, stuffed with multigenerational back stories for key characters and detailed subplots about the domestic affairs of the married sleuths, their friends, colleagues and former spouses. How about calling it a historical-biographical-romanticdomestic-police-proceduralcrime-and-love saga? Like Camilla Lackberg's previous novels set in the Swedish tourist town of Fjallbacka, THE HIDDEN CHILD (Pegasus Crime, $25.95) opens with an unusual homicide. On this occasion, it's the bludgeoning of Erik Frankel, a scholarly old man known to be an expert on World War II and a collector of Nazi artifacts. It's an intriguing crime, but the case is constantly up-staged by a busy domestic drama starring Erika Falck, a true-crime author who plays amateur detective in this series, and her husband, Patrik Hedstrom, a policeman who is supposed to be on paternity leave but can't resist getting involved in the murder investigation. Lackberg has whipped up a respectable plot, but who can concentrate on murder when Patrik is secretly taking his 1-year-old daughter on play dates with his ex-wife? CLASSIC DETECTIVE DUOS - brilliant, eccentric sleuths (like Nero Wolfe) and their scrappy young assistants (like Archie Goodwin) - make livelier companions than those contrived, politically correct pretenders who plod through many modern detective stories. One such classic pair can be found in Will Thomas's Victorian mysteries featuring Cyrus Barker, private inquiry agent and resident genius, and Thomas Llewelyn, his young associate, who narrates their energetic adventures. FATAL ENQUIRY (Minotaur, $25.99) opens in London in the spring of 1886 when the S.S. Rangoon steams into port from Calcutta, bearing Col. Sebastian Nightwine, the villain who killed Barker's brother back in Shanghai. The deadly events that ensue involve a mysterious kingdom in Tibet, but the best fun in this Big Boys' Adventure Book is observing Barker in action. An autodidact who keeps a French chef in his kitchen and rare penjing trees in his garden, he's a formidable foe who applies the wits he was born with (and the subversive skills he acquired in Canton) in hand-to-hand combat. His sidekick, Thomas, is cute, but he has a lot to learn.