1901. Gabriel Ward KC is hard at work on a thorny libel case involving London's most famous music hall star and its most notorious tabloid newspaper, but the Inner Temple remains as quiet and calm as ever. Quiet, that is, until the mummified hand arrives in the post...
While the hand's recipient, Temple Treasurer Sir William Waring, is rightfully shaken, Gabriel is filled with curiosity. Who would want to send such a thing? And why? But as more parcels arrive - one with fatal consequences - Gabriel realises that it is not Sir William who is the target, but the Temple itself.
Someone is holding a grudge that has led to at least one death. It is up to Gabriel, and Constable Wright of the City of London Police, to find out who before the body count gets any higher. The game's afoot.

My Review:

This second book in The Trials of Gabriel Ward series (after the surprisingly terrific A Case of Mice and Murder earlier this year) isn’t exactly a holiday book. But it begins with Sir William Waring, the Treasurer of the Inner Temple, receiving what has to be one of the worst Christmas presents ever on Christmas Eve, just as the Inner Temple is about to recess for the holidays.

No one EVER expects a severed, mummified human hand under their Christmas tree. Or for that matter, on their doorstep or their desk. And yet, that’s exactly what has happened. A neatly cubical box was left on the doorstep with no indication of who delivered it or where it came from.

Inside, a severed hand, more mummified than skeletal, and a teasing card that read, “Can I give you a hand?” While everyone who sees it is properly appalled, this particular parcel couldn’t have been delivered to a more deserving recipient.

(As was more than clear in Gabriel Ward’s first investigation, Waring is a small man puffed up by a relatively small amount of power – and a bullying arsehole about it at all times. A long-dead severed hand and a teasing note is about the level of prank the man deserves.)

Of course Waring wants the incident investigated quickly and discretely. He doesn’t want the police to even KNOW about it and is frustrated beyond measure when Gabriel, in his quietly authoritative way, explains and re-explains and has to keep explaining to Waring, who is theoretically his superior (ONLY in theory) and did train for the bar just as Gabriel did, that sending old, dead body parts around is not, in and of itself, a crime. (Or at least it wasn’t in 1901 when this story takes place.)

Although of course Gabriel’s investigation finds a crime all the same. More than one, in fact. Along with a couple of outright crying shames and a perversion of justice or two that Gabriel is going to be able to hold over Waring’s head for the rest of their working association. Not that Gabriel is that sort at all, but Waring is and that’s all that Gabriel will need to keep him in line.

But first, Gabriel has to sort out a tangle of old, dead clues, several hushed-up disappearances, and a whole lot of metaphorical bodies that too many in the Inner Temple would prefer to remain safely buried – metaphorically or otherwise.

Along with a thorny legal case – because Gabriel never bothers with any other kind – on which hangs one young woman’s reputation. And quite possibly his own.

Escape Rating A: After a bit of a rocky start, I loved the first book in this series, A Case of Mice and Murder, and was primed to love this second book every bit as much. A Case of Life and Limb is EVEN BETTER than the series intro, as it starts out at a faster pace with an immediate bang. The first book began quietly, and Gabriel starts out entirely reluctant to step outside his rather proscribed comfort zone.

This time around, the opening is shocking to the participants, the reader is filled with a bit of glee that Waring so deserves the prank – and it does feel like a prank initially – AND, most important for the progress of the story – this time around Gabriel is just that bit eager to take up the reins of another investigation.

That in this case the investigation starts out with something scandalous but not gory or bloody makes it easier for him to, well, ease into things without slowing the pace down.

Which is the point where things get delightfully complicated. Just the way that Gabriel likes his cases. It’s clear someone is dead, but it’s just as clearly not a recent death which makes the puzzle part of the mystery rise to the top. By the time the case reaches the more recently decreased along with an actual murder investigation (which are fascinatingly not the same person) we’ve all got our teeth into the thing, including Gabriel.

The more that I read and/or listen to this series, the more I enjoy it. (The audio is EXCELLENT at 1.1x speed. I don’t normally specifically recommend speeding up audiobooks, and I seldom do it. Howsomever, in the case of this series, I definitely do. Gabriel’s speech pattern is slow and deliberate. He thinks a LOT before he speaks. The narrator, Jeremy Clyde this time around, does an excellent job of conveying that speech pattern, BUT it drove me bonkers. At 1.1x I still get the flavor of it without being bogged down in it. Your listening mileage may vary.)

Back to the story – or back to Gabriel himself. One of the difficult things about historical fiction/mystery that is written AS historical is the need for the author to reconcile historical attitudes with 21st century sensibilities without making the character seem a person of our time rather than their own.

The way that it’s handled in this series is interesting in itself, as it’s all wrapped up in Gabriel’s eccentric personality. It’s clear from our perspective that Gabriel is both ace and aro (asexual and aromantic) and is somewhere on the autism spectrum – none of which diagnoses were even known in his day. At the same time, the story doesn’t fall into the trap of making autism a superpower. It just is the way that Gabriel is and he’s accepted that, recognizes that he is different from others, and goes on with his life and work and is grateful that they dovetail so neatly AND that he was privileged to be able to become the person he was meant to be.

But it means that Gabriel isn’t steeped in the assumptions of his own time and kind because he’s aware that he doesn’t meet those assumptions himself. He accepts people as he finds them and doesn’t judge by class or circumstance – only by what they, themselves, do and say.

Which makes the legal case he’s involved in terribly fascinating, as it’s a case that relies on all of those assumptions. Gabriel forces the defense to PROVE those assumptions are true IN THIS CASE – and they can’t because they aren’t.

In the end, I raced through A Case of Life and Limb, switching between audio and text willy-nilly because I had to see if Gabriel had come to the same conclusions I did about whodunnit and why. I discovered that I had the who but not all of the whys, and part of what makes this series so much fun is that even though I thought I knew before Gabriel made his announcement, it doesn’t mean he didn’t also know – only that he couldn’t PROVE it and I didn’t have to.

I loved being inside Gabriel’s world, following his dogged investigation of the severed limbs AND his brilliant work on behalf of his legal client. But I was sorry to see the story end, just as sorry as Gabriel was to lose one of his oldest friends in the process. So I was delighted to discover that Gabriel’s third investigation is already in the planning stages, with his next adventure scheduled for publication in January of 2027.