Why Mermaids Sing by C.S. Harris

When Dominic Stanton, the eldest son of Lord Stanton, is discovered in Hyde Park one morning, slaughtered- butchered being closer to the state of the body, the magistrate, Sir Henry Lovejoy, summons Sebastian Devlin, the Viscount St. Cyr, to see the body. Sebastian sees that the boy has been killed, and the flesh carved from his legs, leaving only the exposed bones to be seen, and a goat's hoof crammed into his mouth.

But the reason why he has been summoned is dark. This isn't the first body to be found this way. The first was a young man named Barclay Carmichael, the son of another Lord. His body was butchered in a similar manner, save that it was the arms that were reduced to bones. His body was strung up from a tree, although that wasn't the place that he was killed. And similar to Dominic Stanton's body, there was something left in his mouth- a page ripped from a ship's logbook.

But Sebastian is dealing with personal matters as well. His father is displeased with his relationship with Kat Boleyn, wanting Sebastian to settle down with an eligible woman and raise children with her. Sebastian knows that Kat rules hie heart and won't marry or settle down with anyone else- he's a one-woman man. But he's also looking for his mother, who he has long thought dead but only recently discovered that she is still alive, and he's angry with his father that his father lied to him about his mother. In truth, she'd run off with a lover rather than stay with his father, and as the youngest child, Sebastian was the only one who didn't know the truth.

Kat, meanwhile, is enjoying being with Sebastian, but her past as a French spy is coming back to haunt her. Even though she is Irish, and has spied for Ireland, she knows that Sebastian wouldn't begrudge her that. She's not so sure that he would forgive her for helping the French in hopes it would weaken England and make it easier for the Irish to be independent of England. And now with the French wanting to re-activate her as a spy, she isn't sure they will let her break away and live her life as she wants to- they can blackmail her with her past, knowing that if they told Sebastian about what she'd been doing, it would be the end of her.

As Sebastian investigates the strange deaths, all the families involved claim that they didn't know why their children were murdered, and that they have nothing in common. But Sebastian increasingly suspects that this isn't true, and the murderer is trying to bring another crime to light, one that all the families of the murdered men don't want to admit to. And as the murders continue, he wonders what the crime could have been, and why the murderer is only killing them now- and what a poem by John Donne has to do with the murders. But can Sebastian investigate without becoming a victim himself?

I love every book of this series, which just seems to keep getting better and better. This book opens with Sebastian and Kat finally happy, and finally lovers once again, but the status quo quickly changes in a most unexpected way as she delves into her own background and comes to a wholly unsuspected conclusion as to who her father really is, and how it fatally impacts her relationship with Sebastian.

The main mystery was pretty dark also and the story behind the murders was both shockingly horrifying and unexpected. Unexpected because it was probably more likely to occur than anyone thinks, and because we can sympathize on both sides of the issue. I don't want to give away the plot twist except to say that is will probably be one of the most shocking plots that you are likely to read in a book.

I liked this book best out of all those In the series that I read. It's got everything I love- breakneck plotting, a determined hero who keeps chasing leads come hell or high water, and even lots of looks into the life of our hero, whose seemingly perfect existence is anything but, and details his conflicts as he seeks to make Kat Boleyn his wife and to find a valet who understands his needs as a detective.

After reading the first two books in this series, I really wanted to read this one, but it took me quite a while to actually find it, so I was doubly glad to read it, and devoured it in short order. Now I can't wait to read the next book in the series, which I already have on hand. Highly recommended series and even more highly recommended as a book.