THE MAYFAIR DAGGER by Ava January will be released on April 23, 2024 by Crooked Lane Books.
With marriage to a widower with fifteen children as her only prospect, Albertine Honeycombe flees to London and reinvents herself as the Countess Von Dagga. Hoping to live out her late-brother’s dream of being a detective, Albertine starts her own private investigative business meant to assist the ladies of England’s upper class. Her plan goes sideways when Lord Grendel is found murdered in his home mere hours after she drugged him while in the process of retrieving personal letters that he was using to blackmail another woman. While trying to prove her innocence in the Lord Grendel murder as well as her fictious husband’s death, Albertine hires a man to be the front of her detective agency. Unbeknownst to her, the man she hired is the Duke of Erleigh or that he works for Scotland Yard.
THE MAYFAIR DAGGER is advertised as an historical mystery, but it reads more as a historical romance. There is a murder, but the investigation into that murder takes the backseat to the romance developing between Albertine and the Duke of Erleigh. The duke works for Scotland Yard, but he does very little detective work throughout the novel. Initially, he suspected Albertine of murdering Lord Grendel. But, after he starts falling in love with her, he decides that she must be innocent. He does very little to prove her innocence and seems to think that because he doesn’t think she murdered Lord Grendel that everyone else at Scotland Yard must blindly accept her innocence. In the end, Albertine has to save herself. I wasn’t a huge fan of Albertine until the end. She was more ridiculous that credible as a main character. Also, I wish the plot focused more on the murder investigation and less on the budding romance between the two main characters.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.