A Perilous Undertaking by Deanna Raybourn

 

 

Overview:

 

London, 1887. At the Curiosity Club, a ladies-only establishment for daring and intrepid women, Victorian adventuress Veronica Speedwell meets the mysterious Lady Sundridge, who begs her to take on an impossible task—saving society art patron Miles Ramsforth from execution. Ramsforth, accused of the brutal murder of his mistress, Artemisia, will face the hangman’s noose in a week’s time if the real killer is not found.

But Lady Sundridge is not all that she seems, and unmasking her true identity is only the first of many secrets Veronica must uncover. Together with her natural-historian colleague, Stoker, Veronica races against time to find the true murderer. From a Bohemian artists’ colony to a royal palace to a subterranean grotto with a decadent history, the investigation proves to be a very perilous undertaking indeed….

 

My Review:

 

This is the second book in the Veronica Speedwell Mystery series and I absolutely love it  (I have read the first one as well so if you would like to see a review on that, let me know).

Veronica and her colleague Stoker (natural historian) have been given the daunting task of setting up a museum on the Rosemorran family property.  They had planned an expedition to Fiji to obtain more samples but was delayed due to their benefactor falling and breaking his leg.  Instead, Veronica finds herself summoned to The Curiosity Club – a place where women were free to discuss math, science, and politics, and anything else traditionally considered unseemly for a woman.  There, she meets Lady Sundridge (who isn’t at all who she pretends to be) and is promptly asked to investigate the murder of her friend and fellow artist Artemisia.  Miles Ramsforth, a married man and her lover, has been imprisoned for her murder and is set to be executed unless Veronica can find the real killer.
She enlists the help of Stoker and together, they take on this case – as much to give them something to do other than fight with each other as to help Lady Sundridge.

We learn a lot more about both Veronica and Stoker in this book and the more we learn, the more I want to know.  Both of their pasts are still murky but intriguing and I can’t wait to learn more.
I can’t help but compare Veronica to Amelia Peabody, the lady archaeologist in the Amelia Peabody Series by Elizabeth Peters.  To me, they are nearly identical in behavior, thought process, and even conversations with Stoker, who reminds me of Emerson in the Peabody series.  That’s not a bad thing, as I love that series as well.

The story is engaging and I found myself so engrossed that I finished it in one day.  That’s really saying a lot.  I read fast so it isn’t unusual for me to be able to finish a book that fast but it has to catch my attention from page one and this one certainly did.  There are powerful forces at play in the background and I can’t wait to see how Veronica and Stoker go forward.

I highly recommend this series which starts with – appropriately enough – A Curious Beginning.  The third installment, A Treacherous Curse, is currently available for pre-order and will be released January 16, 2018.  This is such a great series and my only concern is that the author will get bored with it like she did with the Lady Julia Grey series.  She stopped after 5 books, although she did write a few novellas available only as ebooks.  Hopefully that won’t be the case this time.