November 1831. After fleeing London in infamy more than two years prior, Lady Kiera Darby’s return to the city is anything but mundane, though not for the reasons she expected. A gang of body snatchers is arrested on suspicion of imitating the notorious misdeeds of Edinburgh criminals, Burke and Hare—killing people from the streets and selling their bodies to medical schools. Then Kiera’s past—a past she thought she’d finally made peace with—rises up to haunt her.
All of London is horrified by the evidence that “burkers” are, indeed, at work in their city. The terrified populace hovers on a knife’s edge, ready to take their enmity out on any likely suspect. And when Kiera receives a letter of blackmail, threatening to divulge details about her late anatomist husband’s involvement with the body snatchers and wrongfully implicate her, she begins to apprehend just how precarious her situation is. Not only for herself, but also her new husband and investigative partner, Sebastian Gage, and their unborn child.
Meanwhile, the young scion of a noble family has been found murdered a block from his home, and the man’s family wants Kiera and Gage to investigate. Is it a failed attempt by the London burkers, having left the body behind, or the crime of someone much closer to home? Someone who stalks the privileged, using the uproar over the burkers to cover his own dark deeds?
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Praise For An Artless Demise
Based on a true story, thick with period ambience woven into a knotty mystery. Just the right read for a foggy night.
- Kirkus Reviews
Huber marries clever plotting with a rich, nuanced use of period history.
- Publishers Weekly
Anna Lee Huber keeps upping her game--An Artless Demise is the perfect blend of history, mystery, and one of my favorite sleuthing couples!"
- Susanna Kearsley, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author
Anna Lee Huber has done it again! An Artless Demise is an unputdownable story, with an indomitable heroine, a great supporting cast, and a gripping, propulsive narrative with real history at its core.
- Sherry Thomas, USA Today bestselling author of the Lady Sherlock Mysteries
Intriguing, captivating and well-crafted...Anna Lee Huber's AN ARTFUL DEMISE immediately captures the imagination. Huber's grasp of 1830s London, particularly in her use of nuanced social conventions and rich period details, makes this latest in her Lady Darby mysteries another standout tale. The spirited romance of Kiera and Gage will continue to delight, even as new scandals related to Kiera's past threaten everything the newlyweds have built so far.
- Susanna Calkins, award-winning author of the Lucy Campion Mysteries and the Speakeasy Murders
Few heroines pursue their villains with such resource and wit as the indomitable Kiera Darby as she ventures into the spine-chilling world of London's body-snatching business and her past comes back to haunt her. Another riveting instalment in this compelling series from Anna Lee Huber!
- Tessa Arlen, author of the Lady Montfort Mysteries and the Poppy Redfern Mysteries
Kiera's past and her late husband's chilling trade are at the crux of this exquisite entry in the Lady Darby series. For readers, like myself, who consider Kiera and Gage to be dear friends, the high stakes in this immaculately paced mystery will have them biting their nails and firmly on the edge of their seats. London in the midst of political upheaval and shifting social classes is a gorgeously rendered setting and Huber's pitch-perfect historical research shines on every page. But as with all of Huber's mysteries, it is not just the verisimilitude, Kiera's inimitable and fiercely intelligent narrative nor her deft characterization that establish her as one of the premiere voices in her genre, it is the conviction and heart that motivates her characters and the strong sense of morality that counterbalances even the most sinister of crimes.
- Rachel McMillan, author of Murder in the City of Liberty
Anna Lee Huber is the Daphne award-winning author of the national bestselling Lady Darby Mysteries, the Verity Kent Mysteries, the Gothic Myths series, and the forthcoming anthology The Jacobite’s Watch. She is a summa cum laude graduate of Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she majored in music and minored in psychology. She currently resides in Indiana with her family and is hard at work on her next novel. Visit her online at www.annaleehuber.com.
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