A terribly nasty business A Beatrice Steele novel

Screenwriter Seales follows A Most Agreeable Murder with a jaunty sequel that finds Regency era sleuth Beatrice Steele swapping the provincial environs of Swampshire for London's hustle and bustle. Though she still seeks a rich husband to supplement her family's rapidly waning fortune, Beatrice has legitimized her detective work by forming a PI agency with Insp. Vivek Drake. The dashing Sir Lawrence Huxley reigns as London's preeminent detective, however, and handles all the city's most important cases, leaving Beatrice and Drake to deal mostly with clients who've lost cats, dogs, or eyeglasses. Everything changes on the night that Walter Shrewsbury, a prominent member of the Neighborhood Association of Gentlemen Sweetbriarians, is murdered at the Rose, an exclusive private club. Sir Huxley is convinced that opera star Percival Nash is the killer, but Nash, who maintains his innocence, hires Beatrice and Drake to find the real culprit. Seales doesn't stray too far from what worked in the first book, probing the strict class and gender divides of Regency England while keeping the plot moving at a steady clip. This series deserves a long run. Agent: Rachel Kim, 3 Arts Entertainment. (June)

This is the second installment in Seales's Beatrice Steele series (after A Most Agreeable Murder). Beatrice has long fought the restraints of polite society in early 19th-century England. While her mother wants her to find a rich husband to help alleviate the family's financial troubles, Beatrice only wants to be a detective. Her strongest desire is to solve crimes with her partner, Inspector Vivek Drake, an unseemly pursuit for a lady. She convinces her mother to let her go to London for the season to make her debut, but her real motive is to join Inspector Drake to start their own detective agency. Having settled in the area of Sweetbriar with her eccentric chaperone Miss Bolton, Beatrice prepares to participate in the festivities of the social season. Tragedy strikes when one of the pillars of Sweetbriar society is murdered, and Drake and Beatrice are hired to find the killer. After infiltrating the most desired society venue, they are quickly drawn into more murders involving the elite of Sweetbriar. VERDICT A witty entry in the period cozy mystery genre, this is a fun example of a woman breaking the bonds of society to pursue her own dreams.--Sandy Knowles