This note contains spoilers for the book.

A Victorian mystery. Well along in the series, it seems.

Inspector Pitt deals with political pressure and social distances, and ends up in jail himself for a while. His wife takes major risks (at least socially, but there have been two follow-up murders too) to try to figure out what's going on.

And the big surprise is a cross-dresser. There was no murder originally; he was accidentally killed by his wife, who didn't recognize him.

Parts of it were pretty good, other parts were condescendingly preachy (not truly horrible, but enough to chafe).