What Angels Fear by C.S. Harris ✰✰✰✰✰

I belong to an online reading group on Goodreads called Play Book Tag. Each month we select a “tag” to read books from as a way to encourage broadening our reading horizons. This month the tag was “historical mystery.” I’ve read a few over the years but have never found a series that was engaging enough to compel me to read past the first installment. This title, the first in the St. Cyr series, is most definitely going to be the exception.

Our dashing, if somewhat tarnished, hero, one Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, is struggling in the wake of his experiences on the fields of the Napoleonic Wars. When a young woman is found, brutally raped and murdered, on the alter steps of a London church, Devlin is implicated in the murder and takes the only course of action available to him: he sets out to clear his name by finding the real culprit.

Two elements make this novel shine. The first is the cast of characters and the second is the plot. Without sinking to stereotypes, the author pulls together a sizable and disparate crew from the dying King George III and his reprobate of a Regent son to the requisite street urchin. There is a romantic interest that is just present enough — and necessary enough to the plot — not to take over the mystery, while still hinting at more to come in further books in the series.

As is required of a great mystery, the plot is where the book really comes into its own. There are many threads to the plot that gradually, deftly, begin to entwine. I had absolutely no idea who the guilty party was until it was spelled out for me, at which point, I thoroughly appreciated the crafting that went into the plot strands and the many red herrings that were left along the way. 

I must admit, what initially drew me to this novel — out of all the choices I weighed for the tag this month — had little to do with plot, author, or even reviews. I listened to the audiobook, and what made me select this book was its narrator Davina Porter, who is most famous for her narration of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series. She absolutely did not disappoint, creating that perfect storm of novel and narrator that makes for time very well spent.

This book is a highly recommended five stars. I think that lovers of mysteries will be kept guessing, but I think historical fiction readers that do not lean towards mysteries will be captivated by this book, too. Harris uses the 1811 London setting, not only in terms of physical locale but also in terms of historical setting, to serve the reader’s experience in all the very best ways. I definitely look forward to listening to the next book in the series and seeing if the magic continues.