London, 1893: Private enquiry agents Cyrus Barker and Thomas Llewelyn are called in to protect Tsesarevich Nicholas from nefarious forces as he travels to England for a royal wedding―in Dance with Death , the next mystery in Will Thomas’s beloved series.

In June of 1893, the future Nicholas II travels to London for a royal wedding, bringing with him his private security force and his ballerina mistress, Mathilde Kchessinska. Rumored to be the target of a professional assassin known only as La Sylphide, and the subject of conspiracies against his life by his own family who covet his future throne, Nicholas is protected by not only private security, but the professional forces of both England and Russia.

All of these measures prove inadequate when Prince George of England is attacked by an armed anarchist who mistakes him for Nicholas. As a result, Barker and Llewelyn are brought in to help track down the assassin and others who might conspire against the life of the tsesarevich . The investigations lead them down several paths, including Llewelyn's old nemesis, the assassin Sofia Ilyanova. With Barker and Llewelyn both surviving separate attempts on their lives, the race is on to find both the culprit and the assassin they hired. Taking them through high society (including a masked ball at Kensington Palace) and low, chasing down motives both personal and political, Barker and Llewelyn must solve the case of their life before the crime of the century is committed.

My Review:

The opening of this 12th entry in the marvelous Barker & Llewelyn series at first seems a bit, well, ‘out there’ even for the strange and dangerous places that Cyrus Barker and Thomas Llewelyn generally find themselves. Not that Barker doesn’t command every room he enters, but his ‘junior’ partner Thomas Llewelyn seems to still be taking each day a bit as it comes – even after a few years as Barker’s apprentice and a year as his actual partner in their private enquiry agency.

This case starts out far from their usual haunts and much too close to the halls of power – but from a direction that neither of them could have possibly expected. There’s a black man calling himself Jim Hercules in their office, with an obvious American accent, claiming to be a bodyguard for the heir to the Russian Empire, wanting to hire Cyrus Barker (and Thomas Llewelyn) to help him protect his protectee while the Tsarevich is in London for his cousin’s wedding. Even if that protection is mostly from plots by the Tsarevich’s own countrymen, whether back home in Russia or in exile in Britain. Or even among the members of his own entourage.

There’s no part of that that doesn’t stretch the bounds of Llewelyn’s incredulity. If it stretches some of Barker’s, well, Barker would NEVER let that kind of weakness show. Which doesn’t mean that Barker isn’t going to test the man’s bona fides in multiple directions. Including the possibility that young Nicolai might just get caught in the crossfire of protest against the outrageous costs of his cousin George’s wedding.

It’s even more possible considering that George (the future George V of Britain) and his cousin Nicholai (the future Nicholas II of Russia) look enough alike to be twins. (I had to look that one up because it seemed like a hell of a coincidence. But they really did look more than enough alike to be mistaken for one another – and shot at for it.)

Barker claims not to want the case. But he also claims not to want the peerage that his ladyfriend, the recently elevated Baroness Philippa Ashleigh, has arranged on his behalf. The latter may be true, but the former, not so much. Or not exactly. Barker is playing a long game between the Palace and the love of his life, trying to use the one to keep the other sweet in a way that he can reconcile his honor and his principles to.

All he has to do is help Jim Hercules keep the Tsarevich alive – and figure out who is really, truly trying to kill this feckless young man before he can take up a throne for which he is constitutionally unsuited, deliberately undereducated, underequipped and ill-prepared. Or at least stop it from happening on British soil while theoretically under British protection. Because the war that would bring to Britain’s doorstep is one that no one wants to think about.

That the young man in question doesn’t consider his own life to be at risk at all, and that he’s utterly unused to ever hearing the word “NO”, even when it’s very much for his own good, just makes Barker’s, Llewelyn’s and Hercules’ job that much harder.

That Nicholai’s would-be assassin is gunning for Thomas Llewelyn with even more fervor than is exhibited for the intended target just makes this case that much more fraught AND compelling. And does an excellent job of closing this case while prepping the reader for more adventures to come.

Escape Rating A+: I was hoping for exactly this reaction. The series has been calling my name for weeks and I kept putting it off because there were other things I knew that I ‘should’ read. (I hate the word ‘should’. It’s death to getting anything that is supposed to get done, done, that can be put off in any way, shape, or form. But I digress. Or procrastinate. Or both.)

In this “no time’s land” between Xmas and New Year’s, I was looking for a book that would be a ‘present’ for me to read, regardless of when it was published, where I got it, or any other consideration about picking something I ‘should’ read.

In other words, I was looking for a comfort read, I was reminded in Saturday’s Stacking the Shelves post that there was a new Barker & Llewelyn book on the horizon (For Services Rendered in AUGUST) and that I wasn’t nearly caught up yet, and, well, “Bob’s your uncle” – an idiom that would have been just coming into vogue in Britain when this 12th entry in the series takes place in 1893.

The historical events that underlie this entry in the series are based in historical fact. In 1893, the future George V’s marriage to Princess Mary of Teck was attended by an illustrious – and expensive – collection of the crowned heads of Europe and/or their heirs. Or, it could be said that the wedding was attended by the members of the bride’s and groom’s families because that amounted to the same thing.

Including the Tsarevich of Russia, George’s cousin, dear friend and near-twin, the future Nicholas II, who was then a mere 25 years old, naive, petulant, sheltered, undereducated for the role he was destined to inherit, and caught in the crossfire of his Russian cousins, the Grand Dukes, who for the most part believed they could do better at Nicholas’ future job than he would.

It’s possible that they were right. History certainly tells us where Nicholas went wrong. Or where things went wrong for him because he didn’t know enough, wasn’t educated enough, wasn’t intelligent enough to stem the tide of an already brewing revolution.

In 1893, when his bodyguard Jim Hercules hires Barker and Llewelyn (on behalf of one or more of Hercules’ own employers) to help him save Nicholas’s life. There has already been one assassination attempt – in Japan. It’s clear that there are vultures circling the Tsarevich, and that Nicholas can’t see that he’s in danger.

There’s also a great deal of documented protest in Britain about the sheer, over-the-top, expense of the royal wedding. Queen Victoria is obviously showing off for her peers and relations (one and the same) while her people are literally starving.

As if Nicholas didn’t have enough of his own people after his head, there are factions in Britain that would like to make an example of his look-a-like cousin George. The first assassination attempt, just as Barker and Llewelyn take the case, doesn’t seem to care which royal they shoot at.

Part of my fascination with this story was in just how close it hews to documented history. This could have happened. It all fits with known and recorded events both before and after. To the point where I kept trying to find out whether it did. Not with Barker and Llewelyn, of course (and dammit) but something extremely similar. If there is, I can’t find it, but it’s a reminder that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. All the surrounding events did happen. And if something like this happened as well, it would have been thoroughly hushed up.

That verisimilitude, that possibility of this sliding into ‘real history’, much like Barker & Llewelyn’s insertion into the infamous Ripper investigation in Anatomy of Evil, added to my absorption in and by the investigation. (It’s hard to use enjoyment in reference to any examination of the Ripper case, but I was completely absorbed by the story. Likewise, as fascinating as Barker & Llewelyn’s participation in this story is, because history tells us what happened to Nicholas and his family joy isn’t quite the right word here, either. Let’s say that I was hooked by both stories.)

That closeness to the real history – and the poke into the Victorian era at a closer and much more realistic viewpoint – both invokes Sherlock Holmes because of the time period and the relationship between Barker & Llewelyn, and also has similarities to both the Sebastian St. Cyr and Wrexford & Sloane Regency mysteries in that they, too, look under the glitter of their era to expose the grit. Barker & Llewelyn’s increasing involved with the Crown and the functions of government (not the same thing exactly) also reminds me of the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt series. In other words, this series has good bones that I’m immensely fond of so I’m always happy to see how – and what –  Cyrus Barker and Thomas Llewelyn are up to this time.

So, as much as I look forward to new entries in those series, I now look forward just as eagerly to Barker & Llewelyn’s next adventures. I’m still catching up – and enjoying every single book of that catch-up – so my next foray in their late Victorian Era will be Fierce Poison, as soon as I carve out a day for the ‘round tuit’ to catch up to me.