We are one again given a peek at the secret sanctum of the inns of court with capable Gabriel Ward as our guide. Just a few months after Ward solved the Case of Mice and Murder, he is called on once again to investigate mysterious happenings at Inner Temple. As December snows soften the clatter of cobblestones and edges of brickworks, the residents should be getting ready for cosy winter evenings next to the fire. Instead, select members of the bar are the unlucky recipients of horrendous gifts.
First, a severed human hand arrives on the desk of Sir William Waring on Christmas Eve. Then Sir Edward Hopkins receives a foot on the Monday after Christmas. And a toe for Sir Vivian Barton just before the new year. Each is in a plain, brown paper box and delivered directly to the homes of the barristers. The porters recall no unknown couriers or visitors, and a more careful inspection leads Ward to suspect the remains are not new.
Meanwhile, Ward is still working the unusual libel case brought by music hall star Topsy Tillotson. She is determined to sue editors of The Nation’s Voice for printing untrue rumors about her. But finding the man who can prove her case is going to be tricky.
Do the threatening ‘gifts’ have something to do with the accused newspaper reporters? Or are they being sent by someone who wants the man’s true identity kept secret? Or do they have anything to do with the Tillison case at all?
The ancient buildings of the Inner Temple were cauldrons of ambition and dashed hopes and very public successes and humiliations, of resignation and aspiration, of vicious competition and covert kindnesses. Young men came and sometimes left. Gabriel, serenely at the top of his profession for many years now, shielded by Chapman from any administrative demands, resolutely uninvolved with the running of the Inner Temple committees, was not disturbed by these comings and goings and they had made little impression on him. Over the years he could recall none in which there had been any lingering sense of mystery save one. But that one had lingered long in the consciousness of the Temple. Once of their most promising young men. ~Pg. 67
I love the character of Gabriel Ward and have come to find him very endearing. He prefers books and reading and quiet to anything else. He is awkward, though kind, and so has few real friends. His mentorship–and reliance upon–Constable Wright is a lovely thing to watch. The parallel mysteries are well-plotted and well-solved.
This is a very worthy case to add to the series and a perfect cosy Christmas mystery.
My thanks to Maria at Bloomsbury for the review copy.
Publisher: Raven Books
Publication date: November 18, 2025
Print length: 320 pages (English)
ISBN-10: 1639737170