Why Kill the Innocent by C. S. Harris

Why Kill the Innocent by C. S. Harris ISBN-13: 9780399585623 Hardcover: 368 pages Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group Released: April 3, 2018

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
In the newest mystery from the national bestselling author of Where the Dead Lie, a brutal murder draws Sebastian St. Cyr into the web of the royal court, where intrigue abounds and betrayal awaits.

London, 1814. As a cruel winter holds the city in its icy grip, the bloody body of a beautiful young musician is found half-buried in a snowdrift. Jane Ambrose's ties to Princess Charlotte, the only child of the Prince Regent and heir presumptive to the throne, panic the palace, which moves quickly to shut down any investigation into the death of the talented pianist. But Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, and his wife Hero refuse to allow Jane's murderer to escape justice.

Untangling the secrets of Jane's world leads Sebastian into a maze of dangerous treachery where each player has his or her own unsavory agenda and no one can be trusted. As the Thames freezes over and the people of London pour onto the ice for a Frost Fair, Sebastian and Hero find their investigation circling back to the palace and building to a chilling crescendo of deceit and death .


My Review:
Why Kill the Innocent is a mystery set in January 1814 in London (during a bad winter storm and Frost Fair). This book is the 13th in a series, but you can understand it without having read the previous novels. This novel did not spoil the mysteries from the previous books.

The characters were complex, interesting, and acted in realistic ways. Both Hero and Sebastian were deeply involved in the investigation. As usual, several social issues of the time were woven into the story as they touched on the investigation. There were several suspects but Sebastian had difficulty finding the critical clues that definitively pointed to one person. I began to suspect whodunit near the end but was not certain until the final clue was found.

There were no graphically described sex scenes, but there was a scene that ended with two brief paragraphs indicating sex between a married couple. There was a fair amount of bad language. Overall, I'd highly recommend this interesting historical mystery.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.


Excerpt: Read an excerpt using Google Preview.