CITY OF SECRETS is the latest in the enjoyable Counterfeit Lady series, featuring woman sleuth Elizabeth Miles and her friends. With a dodgy background, Elizabeth knows more about crime than most. Her gentleman friend Gideon Bates is required to pursue inquiries, however, when a photo comes to light of Priscilla's late second husband in a compromising position, perhaps at a bawdy house. The possibility for blackmail presents itself, but blackmailers don't normally kill their victims.

I like the atmosphere shown in these mysteries, especially as our heroine Elizabeth is an outsider in the respectable classes and, while giving a good impersonation, she manages to remark on their stuffiness, willingness to believe good or ill and various customs. Such customs, of course, include comfort at funerals and calling upon a widow, who in those days was not supposed to go out to society for a year.

While I enjoyed the complex setup at the end, the early part of the book is more tedious because we get the story of Priscilla's second wedding, widowhood, and lost wealth repeated several times while Elizabeth talks to any person she can find who may know more information. By the seventh or eighth repetition, I started skipping pages.

Great characters include Elizabeth's father, referred to as the Old Man, whose shady background comes in useful. He is delighted to see his daughter making her way up in the world, and doesn't wish to jeopardise her chances, but he can't bring himself to let her go either. The Reverend Honesdale has a connection who is similarly the black sheep of the family. The message of the book could be that good and bad are relative terms and sometimes exchange places. CITY OF SECRETS will be enjoyed by all Victoria Thompson's fans and anyone who wants to read a historical cozy mystery.

Book Summary