I quite enjoy this series. Reliable and entertaining adventures. Full of interesting characters, who sometimes offer surprisingly more depth than I’d expected. The internal journey of Inspector Treadles was quite unexpected. I appreciated the author making a member of our Scooby Gang having such flawed unlikable (but believable, especially for the time period) traits. This started in the last book and continued here. Treadles would define himself as a “Nice Guy” with a trademark symbol next to it, and he’d had a very happy marriage. Until his wife committed the apparently unforgivable sin of having any type of ambitions or desires outside of the household. Since circumstances now placed his wife with a job, running a business, things have been strained at home. But of course nobody uses their words. And Treadles remains silently resentful and self-righteous. It’s extremely irritating, but totally believable. I found myself a bit relieved to see him have a bit of internal growth here, even if it felt a bit unrealistic. And that’s all just a minor side character. Basically we’re on an intense mystery, where circumstances look dire for Lord Ingraham. I appreciated the need for Charlotte to start going undercover as a man…as the extreme gender divisions of this society have caused all types of interesting hoops to allow for her previous investigations. With Mrs Watson’s history in the theatre, and Charlotte’s keen observational skills, apparently a good wig and costuming can disguise a lot. It’s a stretch but one I’ll totally allow, because it’s fun and lets our characters have new adventures.