An Andrea Penrose book has finally come across my bookshelf once again. Murder at King’s Crossing, the eighth instalment in the Wrexford and Sloane Mystery series, brings with it a mix of joy and heartbreak, love and betrayal, and political intrigue and family ties. Thankfully, I was able to pick this up before the end of the spooky season as I wouldn’t see Spooktober complete without at least one historical fiction murder mystery to solve.

Celebration is in the air at Wrexford and Charlotte’s country estate as they host the nuptials of their friends, Christopher Sheffield and Lady Cordelia Mansfield. But on the afternoon of the wedding, the festivities are interrupted when the local authorities arrive with news that a murdered man has been discovered at the bridge over King’s Crossing, his only identification is an invitation to the wedding – an invite meant for Cordelia’s cousin who never showed. Both men were involved in the Revolutions-Per-Minute Society, a scientific group dedicated to making radical improvements in the speed and cost of transportation throughout Britain. As the investigation turns tangled, all of them are caught up in a treacherous web of greed, ambition, and dangerous secrets. When the trail takes a shocking turn, Wrexford and Charlotte must decide what risks they are willing to take to bring the villains to justice.

Riding off the relative calm of Murder at the Merton Library, Murder at King’s Crossing brings the heat and the bloodshed with a mystery that continues to unfold, bringing with it more than a few bodies. It is exciting, tense, and touches upon themes and topics that stir up great intrigue. Admittedly, there were times I was a little expectant, hoping the pace would pick up or the scene would change from easy domesticity to wandering the dark, dirty London streets. Fortunately, those moments were few and far between, but they did slow the momentum a few times.

The characters are fun and interesting – aside from our happy gang of sleuths and misfits, we have a scientific society with more than a few bits of unsaid information, government delegations looking to attend various events and talks regarding science and technology, and we have the nefarious dealings behind closed doors and the unknown enemy lurking in the shadows. Who is behind this all? Where are the connections? Who will get away scot-free, and who will be caught red-handed? I thoroughly enjoyed the interactions between our motley crew, and the familial links are becoming stronger with every book.

I like following the scientific and technological themes of this series, especially considering it is set in a period where advancements in this area are not only significant but extremely competitive and costly, leading to such great set-ups for murders and mysteries. I am eagerly awaiting a novel where Charlotte’s artistic talents and career are questioned, threatened, or under fire at the very least. There must be a point where someone outside their circle finds out some detail or her nom de plume is publicly ridiculed, resulting in cause for rebuttal. That is one thing from the Lady Darby Mystery series has that the Wrexford and Sloane series hasn’t dipped into yet – a balance between Kiera’s profession and skillset and Sebastian’s inquiry agent work.

Nevertheless, Murder at King’s Crossing is a fantastic addition to the series and I highly encourage readers to give historical fiction murder mysteries a go, especially Andrea Penrose’s Wrexford and Sloane series. It is engaging, well-crafted, highly detailed, and carries great links to the Regency era and Industrial Revolution that are informative and entertaining to read. When it comes to historical fiction murder mysteries, you can’t get much better than this.