{"id":7236,"date":"2026-09-25T05:10:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T12:10:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=7236"},"modified":"2026-09-25T05:10:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T12:10:16","slug":"andrea-penrose-murder-on-threadneedle-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/andrea-penrose-murder-on-threadneedle-street\/","title":{"rendered":"Andrea Penrose: Murder on Threadneedle Street"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wrexford & Sloane #10<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Murder on Threadneedle Street<\/em> is book 10 in Andrea Penrose\u2019s wonderful Wrexford and Sloane Regency mystery series.\u00a0 The protagonists are the Earl of Wrexford, a chemist with a special expertise in metallurgy, and his wife Charlotte, formerly Sloane, an artist and political cartoonist who uses the pseudonym A.J. Quill.\u00a0 It is an attraction of opposites between the two.\u00a0 He solves crimes by using logic and the scientific method, while she uses intuition and an artist\u2019s eye for details.\u00a0 Over the course of the series, they have each come to respect, and occasionally use, the other\u2019s method.<\/p>\n

Just as important as the leading couple is their extended family and circle of friends.\u00a0 Wrexford and Charlotte have a group of four young wards, collectively known as the Weasels.\u00a0 Raven and Hawk are two former street urchins the couple took in and raised as if they were young aristocrats, even though the boys often go out into the streets of London in street urchin garb to help Wrexford and Charlotte solve cases.\u00a0 Occasionally Charlotte joins them, dressed as a street urchin named Magpie.\u00a0 Several books before this one, Raven and Hawk were joined by Peregrine, a boy of mixed race who is the heir to an earldom and was adopted by Wrexford after his nearest relative rejected him because of the color of his skin.\u00a0 The book before this one introduced the latest addition to the Weasels: a girl named Eddy, Wrexford\u2019s half-sister he didn\u2019t know existed until then.\u00a0 There is some doubt as to whether Wrexford\u2019s father was married to Eddy\u2019s mother following the death of Wrexford\u2019s mother, and the marriage documents, if they ever existed, have disappeared.\u00a0 Eddy likes to disguise herself as a boy and resents any effort to make her a proper young lady.<\/p>\n

Hawk and Peregrine have welcomed Eddy into the group of Weasels, but Raven, the oldest of the children, has a hard time accepting her presence in the family.\u00a0 Things become complicated in this book because we can tell that Raven has developed a crush on Eddy, even though he doesn\u2019t realize it himself.\u00a0 That might have been the source of the difficulties in the first place.\u00a0 Wrexford has insisted that Eddy not join the boys in their adventures on the streets of London because he wants to protect her, and Eddy chafes against this restriction, which becomes the source of frequent tensions in this book.<\/p>\n

Besides the Weasels, Wrexford and Charlotte\u2019s inner circle includes another couple, Sheffield and Cordelia.\u00a0 Sheffield is a seemingly empty-headed former rake who is actually quite brilliant and has become an entrepreneur\u2014discreetly, because the nobility is not supposed to engage in business.\u00a0 Cordelia is a mathematician who tutors Raven.\u00a0 Each of the Weasels has his or her own talent: Raven\u2019s is mathematics, Hawk\u2019s is botanical drawing, Peregrine\u2019s is mechanical devices, and Eddy\u2019s is art and working with messenger pigeons.\u00a0 Other members of the circle of family and friends are Charlotte\u2019s formidable Aunt Alison, who has recently taken a liking to Eddy, the Scottish surgeon Basil Henning, who is often called on to perform autopsies, Griffin, a Bow Street Runner, and von M\u00fcnch, a mysterious man from a German state who poses as a librarian and who is really an international spy.\u00a0 These friends help the Wrexfords with their crime-solving in various ways.<\/p>\n

One of the strengths of this series is that each book focuses on a different aspect of Regency science and technology (or later technology that had its origins in the Regency).\u00a0 Previous books have featured steamships, locomotives, suspension bridges, and telegraphs.\u00a0 This book focuses on counterfeiting, and the Bank of England\u2019s efforts to create the \u201cInimitable Banknote,\u201d a banknote that cannot be counterfeited.\u00a0 After the end of the Napoleonic Wars\u2014the book begins shortly after Waterloo\u2014paper currency has grown increasingly important, but the problem is that it\u2019s easy for a skilled engraver to counterfeit.\u00a0 The Bank of England, along with the Royal Society, is sponsoring a competition to create the Inimitable Banknote, offering 20,000 pounds to the winner.\u00a0 This is an enormous sum of money\u2014twice Mr. Darcy\u2019s annual income, as fans of Pride and Prejudice<\/em> will know.<\/p>\n

At the beginning of the book, Hawk is very upset when he finds that his drawing teacher, Fletcher Campbell, has been murdered in Threadneedle Street.\u00a0 At first, it seems that his death is a robbery gone wrong, and Hawk is afraid no one will investigate and bring the killer to justice.\u00a0 But Wrexford agrees to help discover the killer.\u00a0 It turns out that one of Raven and Hawk\u2019s street urchin friends witnessed the murder.\u00a0 He never saw the killer\u2019s face, but a valuable ring was taken from Campbell, and Wrexford soon learns that the ring is tied to a group of counterfeiters who were part of a scheme to defraud the government during the Napoleonic Wars.\u00a0 This group substituted real banknotes meant to pay British troops in Lisbon with counterfeit notes and hid the real banknotes away.\u00a0 The leaders, including Campbell\u2019s brother, have been executed, but Wrexford suspects that not all the members of the gang have been caught, and that the mastermind is still at large.\u00a0 He thinks Campbell was killed because of what he knew about the mastermind.<\/p>\n

One person who was believed to be the mastermind is Campbell\u2019s young nephew, the boy genius son of the hanged brother.\u00a0 This young man, a brilliant artist and engraver, escaped to America after his father and other members of the gang were caught and executed, but he is now back in England.\u00a0 Early in the book we learn that Jack MacArthur, the young man who takes Campbell\u2019s place as Hawk\u2019s drawing master (with Eddy insisting on joining in the lessons), is in fact the missing nephew.\u00a0 Wrexford believes his claim that his father drew him unwittingly into the scheme, and that he is not the mastermind.<\/p>\n

Matters become complicated when a second man is murdered: the head of the committee judging the competition to create the Inimitable Banknote.\u00a0 This second murder happens just after the man had asked to meet with Wrexford on an important matter.\u00a0 Charlotte finds poison berries near the body, as well as a puncture wound on the corpse.\u00a0 Surprisingly, Wrexford and Charlotte\u2019s friend, the surgeon Basil Henning, declares that the man died of natural causes and dismisses Charlotte\u2019s evidence of poison.\u00a0 This is not like him at all, and Wrexford and Charlotte fear that Henning has something to hide and wonder if he was part of the counterfeiting conspiracy.\u00a0 To their dismay, they realize that they, and the Weasels, must solve the case on their own, and they can\u2019t even trust one of their best friends.<\/p>\n

The plot contains many intricacies, and we meet several groups of artists and inventors competing to create the Inimitable Banknote.\u00a0 Some of them are actual historical figures, such as the American inventor Jacob Perkins.<\/a>\u00a0 Wrexford thinks he is the one whose technique, involving intaglio and relief printing, would be most successful, but the head of the Bank of England does not want an American to print British banknotes.\u00a0 Is one of the competitors the killer?\u00a0 Or is it an official of the Bank of England?\u00a0 There are many different suspects, and the killer is very hard to guess.\u00a0 Certainly, the murderer\u2019s identity came as a surprise to me.<\/p>\n

The book contains many details about printing techniques, which I found fascinating, but which some readers might think repetitive.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t mind, though, because to me the scientific and technical parts are one of the highlights of the series.\u00a0 I always want to know which Regency invention Penrose is going to feature next.\u00a0 I also love the relationships among the characters, which are just as important as\u2014perhaps even more important than\u2014the mystery aspect.\u00a0 It will be interesting to see how things will play out as Eddy finds her place among the group of Weasels.<\/p>\n

I highly recommend Murder on Threadneedle Street<\/em> to fans of the series.\u00a0 It is an excellent addition.\u00a0 Having said that, though, I do not think readers should begin here.\u00a0 This series depends so much on the characters\u2019 relationships and how they develop, that it should be read from the beginning.\u00a0 Someone new to the series might be hopelessly confused if they began with this book.\u00a0 But the series is well worth reading.\u00a0 Penrose is one of my favorite Regency authors, along with Darcie Wilde, Celeste Connally, and Katharine Schellman.\u00a0 Fans of Dianne Freeman, Tasha Alexander, and Anna Lee Huber should enjoy this series as well, because these authors also feature a sleuthing couple, even though their books are set in a later time (in Huber\u2019s case, only a slightly later time).\u00a0 Penrose has some of the best author\u2019s notes I\u2019ve seen, and I was very glad to read in this one that the next volume is already in the works.\u00a0 I am looking forward to reading the next adventure of Wrexford, Charlotte, and the Weasels.\u00a0 —\u00a0Vicki Kondelik<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wrexford & Sloane #10 Murder on Threadneedle Street is book 10 in Andrea Penrose\u2019s wonderful Wrexford and Sloane Regency mystery series.\u00a0 The protagonists are the Earl of Wrexford, a chemist with a special expertise in metallurgy, and his wife Charlotte, formerly Sloane, an artist and political cartoonist who uses the pseudonym A.J. Quill.\u00a0 It is … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[928,10,2610,162,2609,271,273,682],"class_list":["post-7236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-andrea-penrose","tag-historical","tag-inimitable-banknote","tag-kensington-books","tag-murder-on-threadneedle-street","tag-regency-london","tag-vicki-kondelik","tag-wrexford-and-sloane"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7236"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7238,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7236\/revisions\/7238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}