Peril at the Exposition by Nev March

Peril at the Exposition
by Nev March

ISBN-13: 9781250855039
Hardback: 352 pages
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Released: July 12th 2022

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
1893: Newlyweds Captain Jim Agnihotri and Diana Framji are settling into their new home in Boston, Massachusetts, having fled the strict social rules of British Bombay. It's a different life than what they left behind, and Jim is now a detective at the Dupree Agency. Captain Jim's sent to Chicago to investigate the murder of a man named Thomas Grewe. Everyone's talking about the preparations for the World's Fair. As Jim probes the underbelly of Chicago’s docks, warehouses, and taverns, he discovers deep social unrest and some deadly ambitions. When Jim goes missing, young Diana ventures to Chicago to learn what happened. But who can she trust, when a single misstep could mean disaster?


My Review:
Peril at the Exposition is a historical novel set in the Spring of 1893 and set mostly in Chicago. It's not actually about the World's Fair as hardly any action occurred there. They discussed its layout as it's a probable target. Diana visited once as a tourist, which was described with a long list of the exhibits and a scene set in the Ferris Wheel. But you don't get a sense of what the fair was like. The author used few sensory details (smells, sounds, etc.) that immerse a reader in the setting, making the story feel very flat to me.

We mainly got Diana's point of view. She used very little logic and thought she was smarter than she really was. She needlessly put herself and others in danger. She wasn't in touch with reality. For example, she was sure that if a deed was real then the mine must be full of valuable ore and that simply possessing a deed (stolen or bought) made the mine legally yours. She was so sure she knew what was going on and yet she repeatedly trusted the wrong people and came to the wrong conclusions. Most of her suspects wouldn't actually gain from blowing things up (as Jim eventually pointed out). Diana felt justified in accusing people of crimes before proving such was actually true. She came to snap judgements of people and their motives that showed more about her prejudices than other's.

Jim mostly searched for any physical evidence of who killed his coworker and for the crates of explosives. Diana mostly went around causing sandal along with a male cross-dresser maid. I found it confusing that Jim and Diana kept contradicting themselves. For example, Jim sent a letter to be translated and needed the translation mailed back urgently. Diana waited with the translation at the post office. Jim visited the post office specifically to get the letter. But he refused to even read the letter when Diana tried to give it to him because it would be dangerous for him to have the letter. Even though he went there to get it. Then, later, suddenly it's fine for him to read it even though nothing really changed. The continual switches between "it's too dangerous" and then they act like it's not or "this is true!" only we find out it's not just made this a confusing mess. There was no chance to reason through what was going on when the main characters weren't reliable and no one was what they seemed. It's more like the author was trying to trick the reader than write a mystery.

This is the second book in a series. It's hard to understand the references to family and events from the previous story if you haven't read it as the author provided little of the background. There was no sex. There was some bad language. While I read an Advanced Reader Copy and hopefully some of the confusion will be fixed by the final copy, I just can't recommend it as a historical or a 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.