The Masque of a Murderer

February 16, 2015
Set in 1667, Calkins’s assured third mystery featuring printer’s apprentice Lucy Campion (after 2014’s From the Charred Remains) opens with the sudden reappearance in London of Sarah Hargrave, the daughter of Lucy’s former employer, after an absence of two years. Sarah, who became a Quaker much to her family’s dismay, has come back to check on her brother, Adam, who was injured in the previous book. Sarah wants Lucy to write down the last words of Jacob Whitby, one of Sarah’s new comrades and a friend of Adam’s from Cambridge, who was run down by a cart. On his death bed, Jacob confides in Lucy that someone pushed him into harm’s way and that one of the Quakers who accompanied Sarah is a fake. Lucy again proves herself a resourceful and plausible investigator. Calkins’s familiarity with the period and her use of obscure details, such as the fire court set up to adjudicate claims after the Great Fire of 1666, are a plus. Agent: David Hale Smith, Inkwell Management.

March 15, 2015
Third in the Lucy Campion historical-mystery series, this absorbing puzzler touches on the religious, social, and political changes in Restoration London as experienced by a wide cast of characters. In 1667, just after the double devastation of bubonic plague and the Great Fire, Lucy's new position as unofficial printer's apprentice takes her into all areas of the grim city, quietly gathering information as she sells religious tracts and sensational masques. Still tied by affection to the magistrate's family (especially Adam), Lucy lends her eyes and ears to a murder investigation, at the request of the handsome Constable Duncan, involving a small group of local Quakers and their new recruit, the magistrate's daughter. Calkins' tantalizing clues and rich historical details depicting everyday life and class differences draw readers into the seventeenth century, led by the piquant and elusive Lucy, whose heart is split between two suitors, her job precarious, and whose dauntless curiosity never flags. Lucy's atmospheric, suspenseful adventures are a good match for fans of Paul Lawrence's series The Chronicles of Harry Lytle and C. S. Quinn's The Thief Taker (2014).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)