Who Will Remember By C.S. Harris

This was an addictive installation to a long-running series.

Favourite Quote:

His heart beating heavily in his chest, Sebastian hunkered down to take a closer look at that watch. Exquisitely rendered in the shape of a skull decorated all around with reliefs of Adam and Eve and the Grim Reaper, the watch was hinged at the back of the cranium so that the lower jaw dropped down to reveal its elaborate dial. It was a kind of memento mori, carried by its somber-minded owner as a reminder of human mortality and the brevity of life. And even if he hadn’t recognized the dead man’s discolored features, Sebastian would have recognized that watch.

Book Synopsis:

August 1816. England is in the grip of what will become known as the Year Without a Summer. Facing the twin crises of a harvest-destroying volcanic winter and the economic disruption caused by the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the British monarchy finds itself haunted by the looming threat of bloody riots not seen since the earliest days of the French Revolution. Amidst the turmoil, a dead man is found hanging upside down by one leg in an abandoned chapel, his hands tied behind his back. The pose eerily echoes the image depicted on a tarot card known as Le Pendu, the Hanged Man. The victim—Lord Preston Farnsworth, the younger brother of one of the Regent’s boon companions—was a passionate crusader against what he called the forces of darkness, namely criminality, immorality, and sloth. His brutal murder shocks the Palace and panics the already troubled populace.

Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, learns of the murder from a ragged orphan who leads him to the corpse and then disappears. At first, everyone in the dead man’s orbit paints Lord Preston as a selfless saint. But as Sebastian delves deeper into his life, he quickly realizes that the man had accumulated more than his fair share of enemies, including Major Hugh Chandler, a close friend who once saved Sebastian’s life. Sebastian also discovers that the pious Lord Preston may have been much more dangerous than those he sought to redeem.

As dark clouds press down on the city and the rains fall unceasingly, two more victims are found, one strangled and one shot, with ominous tarot cards placed on their bodies. The killer is sending a gruesome message and Sebastian is running out of time to decipher it before more lives are lost and a fraught post-war London explodes.

Review:

I’ve heard of the Sebastian St. Cyr series but never picked one up. The synopsis for Who Will Remember sounded too good to pass up. I was tentative about my expectations – it’s hard diving into any long running series. I was wildly surprised. The book can be read as a stand alone as enough background is given to understand characters and their motives. This was a gulpable book – I read it in one sitting. The action didn’t let up, and I was instantly hooked on the characters. 

1816 is a fascinating time in European history as the continent recovers from war, the social world is rapidly changing and the weather is causing crops to fail and famine in already stretched thin countries. 

When a dead man is found hanging like a tarot card, our hero Sebastian is pulled into the mystery. What appears to be a brutal murder of a pious and well-regarded man soon becomes a tangle of lies and desperation. The murdered man is not an angel for the poor of London, and the seedy seams of London show their pain. Who Will Remember has a stark look into how the London poor, including veterans returning from war, are treated, or rather, not treated, in the city. The line between wealth and poverty is sharp as a knife. 

Sebastian discovers an uncomfortable link to a friend of his who saved his life on the battlefield. This friend has a motive for the murder, and Sebastian has to work hard to ensure he is not blind to the truth because of the friendship. Mysteries abound however, and the picture isn’t clear. Who is the boy who found the body? Why was the man chosen to die? What is the link to other bodies?  With pressure from the crown to close the murder case, Sebastian has to move swiftly, but also fairly. Because this case is pre the established police force, it’s a fascinating dive into how truth and justice was treated and how wealth and titles could erase truth rather easily. 

This book is fabulously researched, and there is a lot of detail that encourages the reader to experience the time in both its comfort and discomfort. However, you are not overwhelmed with the information – it’s still an entertaining mystery.

I’m delighted to have found a new series to obsess over and will be working my way through the 19 other titles while I wait for the next book to come out!

Thank you to Berkley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.