The Hanover Square Affair

 The Hanover Square Affair (2003) by Ashley Gardner (Jennifer Ashley)

Captain Gabriel Lacey, late of His Majesty's Cavalry, has returned from the Napoleonic Wars with a ruined leg and bouts of melancholy. He's on half-pay because of a matter of honor--a matter that put him at odds with his commanding officer, who was also his closest friend. He feels himself to in a city of strangers with no friends and no purpose. But when an older man is shot and injured by a group of cavalrymen quelling a riot outside fashionable house in Hanover Square, Lacey can't resist getting involved. He discovers that the man was creating the disturbance outside of Mr. Horne's home because he believes the Parliament member to have abducted and ruined his only daughter Jane. Lacey takes the man home, dresses his wound, and vows to find the Thornton's daughter.

His search takes him from the Hanover Square to the backroom of brothels and from the gentle countryside to a home for fallen women. He learns of other young women who have gone missing, but can find no clue to Jane's whereabouts. Then Horne is murdered in his own home and the last person to have seen him is one Mr. Denis--a man who it is said can obtain anything for anyone...at a price. And a man who has friends in high places. Lacey finds himself deep in danger, but a new friendship with a man about town comes just in the nick of time.

When I first read this almost 20 years ago, I said that this was a good start to a new historical mystery series. And I thought it good enough to go ahead and buy the second in the series as well. But then I never read that second book--or any that followed. A challenge that I'm thinking about signing up for in 2023 had a prompt to "read the next book in a series you haven't read in a while"--the perfect time to read the second book in the Captain Lacey series, I thought. And then I thought I better go back and reread this first book just to remind myself what had already happened. Now, I'm not so sure that this was a good idea.

Reading this book twenty years later, I'm trying to figure out what struck me so positively about The Hanover Square Affair. Honestly, Captain Lacey is not a very sympathetic lead character. I am sorry about what happened to him the war, but he seems to have been saddled with a multitude of issues to get over. He's on the outs with his best friend--a best friend/commanding officer that managed to ruin his career and nearly get him killed. He's got a damaged leg. He's living on half wages. His wife ran off on him, taking their daughter with him. He seems (to me) to be in love with his ex-best friend's wife (though he never says so). He's got a nearly ungovernable temper. He has bouts of extreme melancholia. I'm glad that Mr. Grenville decides to befriend him just so the man can have a little bit of good in his life. 

He's not exactly the world's best detective either. His temper leads him to suspect people without evidence. Sure, some of them are really nasty pieces of work and deserve to go to jail for something--but that doesn't mean they did what Lacey thinks they did. And even if they did, he needs to find some evidence and not just go around accusing people. Granted, he does do a fair job of thinking things through once he gets his hands on some clues. But he goes off half-cocked more often than not. The mystery itself is a fairly good one and I do like the friendship that is beginning between Lacey and Grenville. I also like the time period, though I think C.S. Harris does a better job of evoking it in her Sebastian St. Cyr series.

I am going to go ahead and give Lacey another shot in A Regimental Murder and I hope that he develops as a detective...and that he can work through some of these issues that he has. I also hope that more is made of the friendship with Grenville. They could make a very good team. ★★ and 1/2 stars for this reading.

First line: Sharp as a whip-crack, a shot echoed through the mists in Hanover Square.

Last line: "Even if he will not," she whispered, "I will."

Deaths = 6 (one stabbed; one influenza; three more illness; one beaten)