A historical murder mystery, the sequel to A Reputation Dies.

Sir Aubrey Jermyn, a member of the Carlton House set goes to meet his latest inamorata. Unfortunately, he doesn’t return and is eventually found in a pauper’s grave.

Justin Rutherford is asked by Lady Jermyn to investigate his disappearance, and subsequently his murder.

These have been an unexpected delight; Alice Chetwynd Ley is better known as a romance writer, but she turned more to mysteries later in her career.

Recommended

A missing Lord!

This second in the Rutherford Mysteries is once again a delightful read--if murder and blackmail can be considered that!
Justin Rutherford's personae is as always the decisive, yet slightly detached, gentleman detective. Andrea his niece is back being the bright ton darling, smart and at times wayward, and Justin's scintillating accomplice.
This time Andrea's friend Charlotte Jermyn's uncle is missing. Only it turns out he's dead and Andrea might have been the last to see him in an unexpected place.
It seems Preston was somewhat of a roué with a string of mistresses to his bow. As Justin describes him, "one of Prinney’s set ... Odd fish."
It takes some time for a hue and cry to be raised as Lady Jerymn and her husband go there separate ways, having "little in common, and merely try to support the usual observances of marriage." She initially approaches Justin in case her husband reappears from a sojourn in the country or some such activity. An investigation that won't cause embarrassment.
Naturally though with Preston dead, Justin takes a hand with assisting Bow Street. This entails interviewing amongst others, Charlotte. There did seem to be a current of attraction between these two, but that might be all it is.
A pleasing regency mystery.

A Sapere Books ARC via NetGalley ( )