Customer Reviews

A Regimental Murder (Mystery of Regency England)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Captain Gabriel Lacey, the tortured hero from "The Hanover Square Affair" is back again (thank goodness) in a new and dark adventure involving murder and a dead man's lost honour.

Unable to sleep one night, Captain Gabriel Lacey decides to go for a walk where he finds himself gallantly stepping in to rescue a lady when she's attacked by a beggar. Something about this remote and despairing beauty touches Captain Lacey, and when she finally begs his help, Lacey is only all too willing to give it. The lady turns out to be Mrs. Lydia Westin, the widow of Colonel Westin, who has been accused of murdering Captain Algernon Spenser during the rioting at Badajoz in Spain in 1812. Four years later, Colonel Westin readily confesses to the crime. But his wife doesn't believe that he did commit the murder. And when her husband is murdered in his bed (a murder that she has, for reasons of her own, covered up), Lydia Westin is sure that the real murderer had decided to tie up loose ends by killing her husband before he could change his mind and disclose what actually happened. Lydia want Lacey to discover who really murdered Captain Spenser and so to effectively clear his husband's name. And even as Lacey agrees to do all he can to help her, he cannot help but wonder what it is that Lydia is hiding from him. For it is rather apparent that there are quite a few things about this mess that she's left out in her accounting. Like why Colonel Westin would confess to a crime that he had not committed -- Lydia's reasoning for this is flimsy at best; and how the murderer was able to get into the Westins' town house in order to murder Westin. But intrigued by this puzzle and chivalrously inclined to help Lydia, Lacey once again dons his best suit and puts on his best manners in order to move amongst London's elite so that he can unmask a ruthless killer. His path will not be easy, especially when he suddenly finds himself crossing swords again with one of the underworld's more notorious and dangerous of villains...

In creating the Captain Gabriel Lacey mystery series, Ashley Gardner truly struck gold. Both installments in the series so far ("The Hanover Square Affair" & "A Regimental Murder") have proven to be clever, intriguing and compelling. The authour does a fantastic job of adding an atmosphere of darkness and evil to the mysteries at hand, and of maintaining that air of suspense and intrigue that keeps one glued to the book until the last page is reached. And who cannot resist a dark and anguished hero with a painful past? Will Captain Lacey ever recover his spirits and rally? Will he learn to live with his past, or will things haunt him forever? And will he ever achieve a happy and romantic ending? (For the sake of the series, let's hope that this will not happen for a while at least!) Smoothly written and briskly paced, "A Regimental Murder" was a pleasure and joy to read. The question is: will I be able to contain myself for an entire year before the next Captain Gabriel Lacey installment is published?

Gardner has written a wonderful story with excellent characters. She has exposed a period of seeming elegance to have very little grace at all. The character Lacey is intriguing and fully dimensional. The story is full of twists and revelations, but intriguingly, not irritatingly, so. I shall definitely follow this series and highly recommend it for those who love historical mysteries.

In 1816 Regency England, Captain Gabriel Lacey is just starting to recover from the depression he suffered after seeing atrocities committed during the Iberian Peninsula campaign. One night while strolling in London he sees a woman on a bridge seemingly poised to leap to avoid a man with a knife. Gabriel chases the mugger away and brings Lydia Westin to the safety of his home.

Lydia is a widow who asks her host to help her prove that her deceased husband never killed Captain Algernon Spencer following the Battle of Bedejaz in Spain in 1812. She believes that Lord Richard Eggleston, Viscount Breckenridge and Sir Major Edward Conraught managed to find a means to get her spouse to confess to a homicide that she insists he did not commit. Though reluctant to turn back the hands of time to Iberia, Gabriel agrees to help, not realizing the outcome of his acquiescing to investigate will be many deaths and attempted murders of him and his guest.

Ashley Gardner is a name worth following as this author shows deep talent for vividly recreating the era and people of the Regency period inside a powerful mystery. The complex protagonist suffers from post battle fatigue caused by what he witnessed during the war. His slow recovery (see THE HANOVER SQUARE AFFAIR) seems real, but his willingness to jump back in the fray to ensure justice is served demonstrates the inner strength of a man with both morals and ethics that should make him a fan favorite.

Harriet Klausner

I read the first novel in this series and rated it a huge, solid 5 stars. This one slipped a little for me but not actually by much. I have enjoyed both books so much that I will continue to read each and every installment unless Ms Gardner begins to assign chapters to the local kindergarten class and submit them as her own.

This book struck me as a kind of "fill-in-the-blanks" novel. We got to learn much more detail about all the charaters who are, obviously, going to continue right along with Lacey in his adventures. It is a rare talent indeed for an author to juggle so many characters and yet keep the reader interested in each and every one of them. Captain Lacey absolutely grows by leaps and bounds in this book. I like him as a character, I want to see him succede, maybe even to prosper (at least a tiny bit, just to make life a little easier for him). Does he never eat anything but a half loaf of bread? I take that back, he did have a bowl of greens and some meat at one point in this story. (What can I say, I'm a worrier.)

The mystery in this book did not seem to be quite as important to the overall effort but was used to give us more insight into Lacey and his past. The author continued to kill off all the suspects but she threw in a nifty little surprise at the end which I would never have guessed. She really got me there.

Overall, a fascinating read. Wonderful atmosphere. Fully fledged characters. A great look at England during this time with all its social divisions. Ms Gardner has obviously done a lot of research and it pays off in my favor each time I open another of her delightful books.

I only gave this book a 4 star rating but the rest of the series is solid fives. Excellent main character and interesting supporting characters. The mystery plots are also very well done. If you like Anne Perry, PB Ryan, etc, you'll like this series.

In Regency London, on a darkened street, widow Lydia Westin is threatened and gallant Captain Lacey comes to her rescue. When he takes her home, widow Westin attempts to seduce him in her gratitude. She then learns what series readers have come to know: that the captain is an honorable, haunted man. When Lacey learns of the widow's plight - her husband was murdered - he takes up her cause. The good widow believes her husband was killed by three men who both shamed and framed him.

Mr. Grenville, a dandy to rival Beau Brummell, is attending a house party in Kent. The three officers suspected will also be at the house party. Grenville slips Lacey into this aristocratic house party, and together the two try to solve Westin's murder and clear his good name.

A Regimental Murder is a complicated mystery and Lacey is unusually stuffy for a Captain. Mr. Grenville is entertaining, but the rest of the aristocratic society seems beyond redemption. _A Regimental Murder_ is written in first person and comes across in typical regency form.

I don't understand why these books are so hard to get your hands on. They should be sitting on the shelves at major retailers all over America.

This is the second book in this series by Ashley Gardner, The first is 'The Hanover Square Affair'.

Here is the series in order;
'The Hanover Square Affair'
'A Regimental Murder'
'The Glass House'
'The Sudbury School Murders'
'A Body In Berkley Square'
'A Covent Garden Mystery'

And if the others are as enjoyable as the first two I will be eagerly reading them all.

I thought the writing was good, the details of the period well done, the mystery good and not complicated to the point of the ridiculous.

I really enjoy Ashley Gardner's Captain Gabriel Lacey. He's complicated with just the right blend of anguished instability and chivalric respectability, I enjoy discovering more about his past and hoping for his future.

This story left me wanting more, glad that I now have the next two waiting on the shelf for me, but also anxiously fearing the end of the series. There are only six books in the series thus far and they aren't very long. I'd be smart to savor them but I can never savor the good stuff, I tend to take it down in big gulps and then want more of the same.

I just finished the first Captain Lacey mystery a few days ago (The Hanover Square Affair), and am glad to report that the second has lived up to the expectations of the first book. Since book ones subject and characters are mentioned heavily in book 2 I would suggest that you read book one first, if possible.

As someone who is a fan of the regency period I really love these books. Lacey is a Regency hero in the best sense. I also like that the author has taken to showing the ugly underbelly of the English "ton" while showing the good aspects as well. I really love Lacey's "Watson" Lucius Grenville and I would happily read a book by the author with Grenville as the lead. The story was much more fleshed out as I heartily recommend this series to Regency Romance, Fiction or Historical Mystery fans alike.

5 stars.

A Regimental Murder by Ashley Gardner is the second book in the Captain Gabriel Lacey series set in Regency London. Lacey is walking off some of his lingering depression when he spots a beautiful woman struggling with a man with a knife. He quickly intervenes and finds himself investigating her husband's recent murder and the label of murderer that went with him. Lacey involves his friend Grenville, cream of the ton, and bodies start dropping like flies. Lacey is a most enjoyable hero: he has no compunction about pounding the snot out of villains, and he treats ladies with extreme respect, all while maintaining his pride in poverty. He is threatened again for longtime nemesis Denis, and starts the search for his long lost wife and daughter. So much happens within the 240 pages, it makes you wonder why other authors can't cull their own 400 pages down to something more reasonable. Gardner's characters are deeply complex with unfathomable motivations. Lacey's relationships with Brandon and Louisa are constantly revealing new sides to each character. This is a mystery series with heart and intense characterization.

The most ineresting character in the book was Greenville, who was not the main character. The ending was extreme, and ineffective.