A Terribly Nasty Business: A Beatrice Steele Mystery

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)