Second Sons Mysteries

Second Sons

by Amy Corwin

The Second Sons Mysteries is a boxed set of the three Regency-period mysteries featuring the logical founder of the Second Sons Inquiry Agency and the brilliantly intuitive Prudence Barnard. As a special BONUS, the Regency gothic mystery, Christmas Spirit, is also included in the set. The Vital Principle In 1815, an inquiry agent, Mr. Knighton Gaunt, is asked by Lord Crowley to attend a séance with the express purpose of revealing the spiritualist as a fraud. The séance ends abruptly, however, and during the turmoil, Lord Crowley dies. Gaunt is left to investigate not only fraud, but murder. Suspicion turns first to the spiritualist, Miss Prudence Barnard, but as Gaunt digs deeper into the twisted history of the guests at Rosecrest, he discovers more deadly secrets. Inevitably, long-time friends turn against one another as the tension mounts and Gaunt is challenged to separate fact from fiction. The Dead Man’s View When Eric Knibbs invites his second cousin, Prudence Barnard, to a house party, she’s pleased to discover that she has a family, after all. Since her father’s death, Pru thought she was alone and struggled to maintain her existence without help. Unfortunately, their reunion is cut short when Eric is found dead, hanging from a noose outside his bedroom window. The coroner and his jury believe Eric hung himself, but Eric was afraid of heights and could never have committed suicide in such a manner. He won’t even allow the drapes to be opened in his bedroom, so how could he have jumped out of the window with a noose around his neck? After a quick examination of his room, Pru finds too many anomalies and can’t help questioning the positioning of the body outside his window, facing the hedge maze in his garden. While Pru doesn’t have any answers, she knows her cousin was well-liked and generous, so she seeks help from her old friend, Knighton Gaunt of the Second Sons Inquiry Agency. Pru soon learns the maze had a dark past and neither Pru nor Knighton are prepared for the strange paths they must follow to discover what deadly truth lays hidden in the shadows at Kennington Manor. Was the maze in the dead man’s view at the heart of the mystery or simply the killer’s ruse to suggest suicide? Honeymoon with Death On their honeymoon trip through Europe, Prudence and Knighton join a small group of travelers to see the triple falls on the river Velino in Italy when tragedy strikes. Their carriage breaks down on a remote road, they are accosted by bandits, and escape only to find one of the travelers dead the next morning in a ravine near the bandits’ ambush location. The mystery deepens when they discover the victim is wearing another traveler’s cloak. To make matters worse, the inn they are forced to stay in is reputed to be haunted. As Knighton and Pru investigate, they discover the other passengers of the coach were not the strangers they seemed. Revenge, envy, and frustrated love vie as motives, and Knighton is pushed to desperation when Pru is kidnapped. He must use every ounce of logic and intelligence to find the killer and free his wife before there is another death on the road to Rome. SPECIAL Christmas Spirit A blizzard envelopes the English countryside five days before Christmas, stranding Eve Tomlin and her mother when their carriage shatters a wheel. The women struggle through the snow, forced onward by a wraith-like figure gliding through the trees. Exhausted, they find an apparently abandoned house and stumble inside. They are confronted by Giles Danby, a guest at Folkestone Manor. Danby ruthlessly tells the women they must go. Their host has just been murdered. A killer is on the loose.

Genres: Mystery

890 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 10, 2015

About the author

Amy Corwin is a charter member of the Romance Writers of America and recently joined Mystery Writers of America. She has been writing for the last ten years and managing a career as an enterprise systems administrator in the computer industry. She writes Regencies/historicals, mysteries, and contemporary paranormals. To be truthful, most of her books include a bit of murder and mayhem since she discovered that killing off at least one character is a highly effective way to make the remaining ones toe the plot line.
Amy’s books include the two Regency romances, SMUGGLED ROSE, and LOVE, THE CRITIC; three Regency romantic mysteries, I BID ONE AMERICAN, THE BRICKLAYER’S HELPER, and THE NECKLACE; and her first paranormal, VAMPIRE PROTECTOR.
WHACKED!, a contemporary mystery from Five Star, will be out in 2012, and her most current historical mysteries include THE VITAL PRINCIPLE--a Second Sons Mystery.

Reviews

[Casey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Avery, very good read

I feel I have new friends with each book I read. Entertaining and intelligent stories with enough humor to keep the suspense lightened.