Lacey soon finds his distraction in the form of a corpse pulled from the Thames near Temple Bar, a corpse he fears may be the body of his upstairs neighbor, a sometime actress named Marianne Simmons who has been missing for several weeks. Marianne had a habit of getting herself involved with less than savory men, and Lacey fears the worst for her as he travels to identify the body.

However, it quickly becomes apparent that the dead woman is not Marianne, which inevitably raises the question as to who this young woman might be. Deeply moved by this nameless victim, Lacey begins an investigation and discovers that the woman was both the wife of a London barrister named Chapman and the mistress of a respected nobleman named Lord Barbury. Sensing a possible love triangle gone tragically wrong, Lacey digs into the lives of these three and discovers far more than he bargained for.

The victim, known to all as Peaches, was a devotee of a secretive club called The Glass House, where the crème de la crème of London society would indulge their every desire, no matter how distasteful. The club’s reputation is well-known to the local authorities, but the political muscle of its patrons has prevented the reformers from shuttering its doors. As Lacey digs deeper into this underworld, he learns that Peaches may have had far more enemies that anyone ever suspected. Combining his investigative mind with his friends’ social contacts, Lacey fights against time to catch a killer.

Author Ashley Gardner continues her series of mysteries set in Regency England with The Glass House, and in this latest entry she offers up a quickly-paced read with engaging characters and a multi-layered plot sure to satisfy her fans.

In Captain Gabriel Lacey, Gardner has created an intriguing protagonist who clearly strives to assuage his physical and emotional hurts through crime solving, an unusual approach that works well as a driving force for the character. Lacey’s relationships with his friends and associates are also well-drawn, as numerous other characters act out their own agendas on him. Gardner’s secondary players are often difficult to like as a result, but their self-serving interests do make them both realistic and interesting.

Gardner succeeds equally well with her mystery, devising an intricate puzzle that subverts the classic love triangle in a novel way. The story twists and turns throughout, offering up a wide range of motives and suspects, but the ultimate resolution is well-thought and tidy with no aggravating loose strings left behind.

The one area in which Gardner fails to live up to her promise as a writer is making full use of her historical setting. While she touches briefly on the then-popular craze for inhaling ether recreationally, otherwise the historical aspects of her story fade so far into the background as to be almost unnoticed. This small lapse doesn’t distract terribly from the overall story, but the inclusion of greater historical detail would elevate this book to an even greater level.

Ultimately, The Glass House should prove a worthwhile read for fans of historical fiction and clever storytelling.

--Jessica Plonka