Andrea Penrose: Murder at the Serpentine Bridge

Murder at the Serpentine Bridge is the sixth installment in Andrea Penrose’s Wrexford and Sloane Regency mystery series.  As the book opens, in 1814, the two protagonists, the Earl of Wrexford and Lady Charlotte Sloane, are a newly married couple, and Charlotte is trying to get used to life as a countess, while inwardly rebelling against the restrictions of Regency high society.

Wrexford is a man of science, a brilliant chemist, who relies on logic and deductive reasoning to solve crimes.  Charlotte is a satirical cartoonist who uses the pseudonym A.J. Quill.  She had eloped with her drawing teacher when she was very young, and scandalized her family.  Now that her first husband is dead and she is married to Wrexford, she is finally accepted back into polite society.  In contrast to Wrexford, she uses her intuition and artist’s eye to solve murders.  The two complement each other very well.  At first I wondered if the series would not be as compelling now that the two of them are married, but I am happy to say I was wrong.  Wrexford and Charlotte make a great couple, and the witty dialogue which was a strength of the earlier novels is still there. read more