A Regimental Murder by Ashley Gardner

A Reg­i­men­tal Mur­der by Ash­ley Gard­ner is the sec­ond book in her Cap­tain Gabriel Lacey series. In this install­ment, Lacey helps a griev­ing widow clear her husband’s name and restore his reputation.

Lacey returns in this sec­ond install­ment, set­tled into with his new life in early 1800’s Regency England. Lacey still suf­fers from bouts of melan­choly but he has his good friend Lucius Grenville to keep him in good spir­its with invi­ta­tions to the best par­ties in the Ton. Here is the syn­op­sis for book two:

After sav­ing a lady of qual­ity from a mys­te­ri­ous assailant near the docks, Cap­tain Lacey helps in her search for jus­tice. Her late hus­band was accused of a crime he didn’t commit–and then mur­dered. Try­ing to clear his name, Lacey gets drawn into the intrigues of an under­world villain.

Lacey in this install­ment falls in love and falls hard for a widow whose hus­band has been wrongly accused of a crime he prob­a­bly had noth­ing to do with that even­tu­ally leads to his mur­der. Lady Lydia Westin is attacked near the waterfront, late one night while Lacey is out strolling for lack of sleep. The attack is thwarted, thanks to Lacey and even­tu­ally, Lady Westin tells him her story and even­tu­ally con­vinces Lacey to look into her husband’s mur­der and clear his good name.

Lady Lydia Westin’s hus­band is the late Colonel Westin, an offi­cer accused of mur­der­ing another offi­cer dur­ing a riot Bada­joz in Spain in 1812 .  After return­ing home and con­fess­ing to the crime, Colonel Westin is mur­dered in his bed thus leav­ing his griev­ing widow scared and alone. Westin’s rep­u­ta­tion in the army is smashed to smithereens and Lydia  turns to  Lacey to help clear her late husband’s name and restore his rep­u­ta­tion. Of course, Lacey in turn taps Grenville for help and together they solve the case.

This install­ment was a quick read with a very inter­est­ing plot. I was very involved in the story in want­ing to know who killed Colonel Westin. While help­ing Lydia clear her husband’s name, Lacey falls in love but it doesn’t end very well. It doesn’t seem like Lacey will get a break this time, ladies. I’m pretty sure the author has a good woman wait­ing for him, hope­fully in the next installment.

We also learn just a lit­tle bit more about Lacey’s past and what hap­pened to his wife and daugh­ter who  had left him behind while he was in ser­vice. Mean­while, Lacey con­tin­ues to bat­tle with melan­choly. Lacey has a good heart. He’s an hon­or­able man and a gen­er­ous one (always help­ing out his neigh­bor who is too proud to ask him for help when she clearly needs it). I really like Gabriel Lacey.  This is a good series so far fea­tur­ing a won­der­ful, mem­o­rable hero. If you enjoy his­tor­i­cal mys­ter­ies, check this series out. My grade, B. I think I’ll take a break here and read some­thing else for now.