Petty Treason

by Madeleine E. Robins

Overview

Welcome to Miss Tolerance's Regency London, where nothing is what it seems and the only way to serve justice is to follow conscience rather than law.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Fallen Woman of good family must, soon or late, descend to whoredom.

Miss Sarah Tolerance refuses to follow the path of the Fallen Women who have gone before her. She's a straight shooter, with her pistol as well as her wit, and her mind is as sharp as the blade of her sword.

Miss Tolerance is an Agent of Inquiry, a private investigator of sorts--the sole one of her kind in London, in this year of 1810 with mad King George III on the throne and Queen Charlotte acting as his Regent. Her aim was to trace lost trinkets, send wastrel husbands back to their wives, and occasionally provide protection to persons with more money than sense--but she is continually drawn into the plots of others.

Her newest case poses a puzzle unlike any she has faced before: who killed the Chevalier d'Aubigny? The French émigré was beaten to death in his own bed, found by his retainers the next morning, all the doors and windows of the house sealed tight. The murder is a classic locked-room mystery, but Miss Tolerance knows she can find the key.

As Miss Tolerance examines the situation and interviews witnesses and suspects, she realizes things are far more complicated than she originally suspected--for the Chevalier had more enemies than he had friends, and Miss Tolerance is hard pressed to find someone who didn't wish him dead. Her search for his killer takes her from the lowest brothels of the seedy London underworld, where men go to indulge their more aggressive desires, to the Royal Family and a Duke who must hide his perversions or risk the Throne.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781466806665
Publisher:	Tor Publishing Group
Publication date:	05/01/2024
Series:	The Sarah Tolerance Mysteries , #2
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	355,367
File size:	530 KB

About the Author

Madeleine E. Robins is certified as an actor combatant in rapier, quarterstaff, broadsword, and hand-to-hand fighting, and was a member of a troupe of actors who perform Shakespeare scenes with combat for high schools and Renaissance festivals.

Madeleine is a New Yorker by birth, training, and inclination, but recently relocated to San Francisco, where she now lives with her husband (Emmy Award-winning sound editor Danny Caccavo), and their two daughters. She authored the New York Times Notable Book The Stone War, several Regency romances, and many short stories. Petty Treason is her second novel to feature Miss Sarah Tolerance, Agent of Inquiry.

Editorial Reviews

In Robins's second delicious Regency mystery to feature "agent of inquiry" Sarah Tolerance (after 2003's Point of Honour), someone bashes in the head of the Chevalier D'Aubigny, a man whose faults far outweighed all other considerations. Blame falls on his mouse of a wealthy wife, who is arrested and thrown into England's awful prison system. Miss Tolerance investigates the many people who wanted the chevalier dead, a commission that takes her from the best salons to the worst stews and gin shops of 1810 London. In her quest, she must deal with the political ramifications of peculiar sexual practices in the royal family, the maneuvering of French emigres for power and the machinations of Bonaparte, not to mention a few inept and dangerous officers of the law. Sarah may be a "Fallen Woman," but she's also clever, resourceful and highly capable with a sword. She is so well realized that we accept the conceit of a female sleuth-a liberated Elizabeth Bennett, as it were-who fences, wears men's clothing and lives behind her aunt's brothel. One hopes that the delicate hint of romance with the Magistrate Sir Walter Mandif is realized in future novels in this most pleasing and agreeable series. Agent, Valerie Smith. (Sept. 4) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

The incomparable Sarah Tolerance is back, still scandalizing Regency society by working as an investigative agent while dressed in men's clothing. When we last saw Miss Tolerance in Point of Honour, she had just testified against the man she loved in a very public murder trial, her sense of honor and justice worth any price. Now she's been given a puzzling homicide case. The Chevalier d'Aubigny, an abusive, sadistic man, has been discovered murdered in his locked home. Everyone who knew him has a reason to kill him, but in solving the case nothing stands in Miss Tolerance's way political intrigue, treasonous plots, danger, not even London's seamy underbelly. Highly recommended for libraries of all sizes. Robins lives in California. Shelley Mosley, Glendale Community Coll. Lib. Media Ctr., AZ Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

During England's Regency period, a fallen woman becomes a private inquiry agent. Sarah Tolerance, whose dalliance with a married man in Belgium sullied her reputation forever, brings noteworthy skills to the position of 1810 London's only p.i. She's deft at swordplay, dead-on with a pistol, and privy to the tawdrier gossip from her aunt, a brothel madam, and her close friend, Sir Walter Mandrif, magistrate of Bow Street. When Mr. Colcannon asks her to solve the murder of his brother-in-law, Chevalier Etienne d'Aubigny, bludgeoned to death in his bed, she quizzes his household staff, who swear that the house was locked up tight from 11:00 that night till the next morning, then questions the little widow, sorely abused by the deceased. Her travels take her from a brothel specializing in flagellation the Chevalier often visited to the literary salon of Camille Touvois, where political alliances form and reform, the Duke of Cumberland's War Support Bill is frequently discussed, and the Duke himself makes regular appearances. The Chevalier's home, stripped of most of its paintings, silver, and fine furnishings, bespeaks an owner in financial straits. Was his murder a cruel way of settling his debts? Was it a whore's revenge? A wife's? Or was there a political slant to it, something involving France's world position? Robins (Point of Honour, not reviewed) provides good period detail but flimsy character development and only a half-hearted attempt at a locked-room puzzle.

Kirkus Reviews