Elsa Hart (The White Mirror; City of Ink) has previously written novels set in 18th-century China, but in The Cabinets of Barnaby Mayne she explores a different place: London in 1703. Cecily Kay, wife of an English diplomat, has returned to London, hoping to identify some of the plant specimens she has collected abroad.
Cecily turns to Sir Barnaby Mayne, one of the most noted collectors in English society, whose house is crammed with plants, animals, precious gems, skeletons, rocks and sundry other items he has procured. Sir Barnaby is hosting a tour of his home for Cecily and several other collectors and natural historians when he's abruptly called away. The guests wander the house, until screams alert everyone, and they find Sir Barnaby's bloody corpse in the library. Sir Barnaby's gentle assistant shouts that he is the murderer, then flees the scene.
This scenario has a false ring to Cecily, whose naturally inquisitive mind soon realizes any number of the guests could have slipped to the library unseen. She begins a surreptitious investigation into the lives of the other members of the tour and of the Mayne household--and quickly finds her own life threatened in response.
Hart's meticulous research shows clearly in The Cabinets of Barnaby Mayne, but never overshadows the intrigue of the mystery and the nuances of Cecily's character. A fascinating figure, Cecily has intelligence and bravery that make her the perfect lens through which modern readers can explore the era. Readers of historical fiction or thoughtful mysteries are both sure to love The Cabinets of Barnaby Mayne. --Jessica Howard, bookseller at Bookmans, Tucson, Ariz.