Books like Who buries the dead by C. S. Harris

In London’s hard‑to‑translate early nineteenth‑century streets, the vicious decapitation of Stanley Preston, a wealthy and socially ambitious plantation owner, draws Viscount Sebastian St. Cyr into a perilous investigation. The discovery of an old lead coffin strap bearing the inscription "KING CHARLES, 1648" near the body suggests a chilling connection between Preston’s murder and the 17th‑century beheading of the deposed Stuart monarch. Compounding the mystery, Preston’s kinship to the present Home Secretary attracts the attention of St. Cyr’s powerful father‑in‑law, Lord Jarvis, who is willing to employ any means to serve his clandestine ends. Working closely with his fiercely independent wife, Hero, St. Cyr follows a trail that leads him from the wretched back alleys of Fish Street Hill to the glittering ballrooms of Mayfair, assembling a list of suspects that ranges from an eccentric Chelsea curiosity collector to the brother of an observant spinster named Jane Austen. As each brutal murder follows the other, the link between the victims and the former army officer Sinclair, Lord Oliphant—who once nearly destroyed St. Cyr in a wartime act of carnage—dramatically raises the stakes. Now Oliphant’s vindictive presence threatens not only St. Cyr but everything and everyone he holds dear.

First publish date: 2015