A Pretender’s Murder is the second in the Eric Peterkin historical mystery series, but can certainly be read as a stand-alone. Eric Peterkin, our amateur sleuth is dealing with life post WWI. He carries guilt for decisions, and occasionally has flashbacks. He has recently been elected to the position of secretary of the Brittania Club, a result of the murder in the first book, and is relieved when the well-respected Colonel Hadrian Russell shows his support. When Russell is murdered in the club, Peterkin takes it upon himself to find the killer.

The Colonel had four daughters-in-law, each of whose husbands died in the war. These women let us see how the war impacted women’s lives, both during the fighting and afterward, but are potential suspects. We have one of the dead men’s friends who has returned after convalescing abroad and has been getting quite close to one of the widows. It’s also possible that some of the Colonel’s activities during the war led to his death.

This not a quick read. The plot is complex and maybe a little drawn out. I like the characters and setting, but found myself not really caring who dunnit.

Eric Peterkin is tasked with being the new secretary of the soldiers only club Britannia under Colonel Hadrian Russell.. That is until the Colonel is found murdered right outside his club. Reluctantly Eric begins his investigation into the mystery and soon discovers that very few things are what they seem.

I had a hard time getting into this book - the writing style feels very different from anything I've read recently, the sentence structure is different. Everything feels paced slower, the sentences longer, the descriptions flowing. Took a bit to get used to, honestly, but once you get into it, you're in. That's when the writing style fully unfolds and the book becomes so super enjoyable. This is definitively a book I'm buying myself in print version once it's out because it was just that good that I want to go back and reread it. I loved that writing style. And it fits so well with the theme of the book! Anything else would've just been too modern to be believable, I don't think the immersion you get here could've been created otherwise.

I loved the characters, especially Eric - he is reluctant to do what he's doing, he struggles with the lingering effects of the war, he's actually busy enough with his job and the manuscripts he's reading.. And yet he can't say no, when it's his men who get accused of the crime. But it's not only that - he's also half Chinese, yet can't speak any of the Chinese dialects, and still gets treated differently. Then there's the four daughters in law of Hadrian Russell - they really felt like thought through characters, everyone of them different from the rest, different focus, goals.. They felt real. It was a little difficult to meet them at first because you're kind of thrown in, here's the four daughters in law with their four late husbands, all of Hadrian's sons.. But since they've actually got personality, you can get to know them over the course of the book.

The story is very much an old times crime solving puzzle, the book feels like one and hey, look at that cover. Just fits. You don't get fast paced action, things take their time to unfold and there's clues to find and so many slow steps to be taken. This feels more in the vein of Sherlock Holmes and I love it for that reason.

Topicwise of course the Great War is looming over everything - it hasn't been long that it was over, people are still suffering of the aftermath and getting help for mental issues at all is very difficult if not just impossible. But it's not just the men who suffered, women lost their traditional roles and some don't mind but gaining the acceptance of their surroundings is a whole different topic. The story does not feel like it was just built around those topics to draw attention though, they're naturally woven into the book and it's just done so well, I could really imagine myself back in the times, fear still prevalent, but things not quite fully changed into modernity. This book did a great job at world building and keeping that world fully alive.

The one thing I was a little bit put off by was the whole traveling part - it felt so nonchalant, no one got informed of Eric and the other's absence, they just left she got their bags and ended up traveling to Switzerland and simply being gone. It felt a little rushed to just up and go, given that everyone involved has a job and positions you can't usually just leave and not turn up for.. And even being in Switzerland didn't do much for the story, except of course for the discoveries made there.

Speaking of discoveries - the plot is very well thought out. There's a few twists, that you can see coming but not fully, it's just that feeling you get when things add up too conveniently.. And that does nothing to change from the fact that the way the plot is built up makes this book just a fun read. It's like you're getting to collect your own clues as well, solving alongside Eric and if you missed something, he and his men will bring it up eventually. Like I said above - it feels like a puzzle and I loved it.

Overall, I definitively enjoyed that. Very much in the vein of Sherlock Holmes, very much a mystery you can unravel alongside the characters and very much a book that'll just keep you reading because you can't stop. It's just fun and a whole different world.

Thank you Inkshares for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

A Pretender’s Murder is everything I want in a historical mystery—smart, atmospheric, and full of twists that kept me guessing. Christopher Huang nails the 1920s setting, weaving in post-war trauma, espionage, and social change without ever losing the thread of the mystery. Eric Peterkin is a fantastic lead—thoughtful, sharp, and just the right amount of skeptical. The story starts with a literal bang (a man thrown out a window!) and only gets better from there. I loved how the plot unfolded across different locations and layers of secrets. If you enjoy classic whodunits with depth and heart, this one’s a must-read.

The main idea of the story is very good, also the setting is well chosen and well described.
But the story has many characters and the only one causing any effect or moving the story forward, or even starting a conversation is the main character, despite that the story is not written from a first person perspective.
Aslo, the chapters are divided in a way that caused me distraction while redaing.
This story would have been so much better if it had less unnecessary details and was told from the perspective of more than a character, like the wives of the dead sons, or the father.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy — all opinions are my own.

I went into this one a little hesitant. It’s the second book in a series, and I hadn’t touched the first, so I wasn’t sure if I’d be playing catch-up the whole time. The good news is, you can follow along just fine without the earlier installment. The less-good news (at least at first) is that it took me a bit to warm up to the world and the characters. The opening stretch moved slowly, and I wasn’t sure I cared enough to keep going.
But I’m really glad I did, because the second half completely won me over.

We’re in London, 1925. Eric Peterkin works as secretary at the Britannia Club, a place for former soldiers to gather. The club’s acting president, Colonel Russel, is a well-loved figure who endured an unthinkable loss: all four of his sons were killed in the war. Their widows still frequent the club and are often seen in his company. When Russel turns up dead, Eric finds himself in detective mode, trying to unravel the mystery.

This isn’t a quick-fire murder mystery full of twists every other page. Instead, it’s a slower, more deliberate story that digs into the shadows left by the Great War—particularly the personal grief and unspoken truths that linger years later. I found myself most invested in the four widows, who are each fascinating in their own way, and in how the book portrays the unique pressures and challenges women faced in that era.

The mystery itself isn’t impossible to solve, but it’s satisfying, and the journey to the answer feels thoughtful rather than rushed. Eric is an easy character to like—good-humored, considerate, and sharp without being arrogant. I suspect readers who met him in the first book will enjoy his return even more than I did.

By the end, I went from doubtful to fully on board, and now I’m planning to track down book one to see where it all started.

This year, one of my goals was to read books from authors of different backgrounds, and I’m so happy I was accepted on NetGalley to read this book as an ARC.

I love detective mystery books, as well as historical fiction, and this book didn’t disappoint. I learned this was a sequel, after I got accepted to review this, so I read the first one just to have a bit of context on the main character Eric Peterkin, and how he views the world. I must say this book has some minor references of the first one, but it is not relevant for this one’s plot (so you can read this without having the need to read the other).

The story is full of plot twists, and it keeps you on the edge thinking who actually did it. So that’s amazing, and something I love from detective books.

I removed one star just because there are some slight jumps between scenes I couldn’t process (but that may be because english is not my first language).

Overall, awesome book and will definitely read more from this author.

I love a good mystery. All the better when there are moments of suspense and when there are reveals one after the other. In A Pretender’s Murder by Christopher Huang, we get just that. Eric is, was, a soldier in the Great War, a war that he and millions of others are still reeling from seven years later. And as he pieces his life back together, he finds himself with a new job in a gentleman’s club as the secretary, the old one gone after a murder. And yet only weeks into Eric’s new position, he is faced with another one. And just as he had a hand in solving the previous one, he decides to take this one on as well.

Let me start off by saying that it took a little while before I got into the novel. This is probably because I am unused to the author’s style and thanks to it being an ARC there were a lot of editing and formatting issues that caught my attention more than what was happening on the page. That’s right, I received an advanced reader’s copy (a digital one, at that) in exchange for an honest review. And so here goes my review!

Stars: 4/5

I love how involved Huang’s world is and that he never gives us more information than is absolutely necessary to either understand a character, a line of thinking, or misdirect us. His protagonist is half-Chinese, but fully removed from that half of his culture as his mother thought she had to erase that part of herself in order to be English…something that Eric laments. Moreover, a former lieutenant in the army, he is dealing with PTSD and we get bouts of him superimposing war scenes into the present moment.

Another thing that really makes this interesting for me is the fact that Eric initially wants nothing to do with the case. Sure, it involved someone he knew personally, it happened in his workplace, and people know he’s capable. But he wants nothing to do with violence anymore. Yet, when he realizes that the police are just mucking it up, and at the behest of those around him, he gets to work. Something about an unwilling hero has always been appealing to me. Add in the espionage, the betrayal, the misogyny, and you’ve got a pretty good story.

Eric along with his friend Avery, a quartet of widows, his sister, and an alienist take matters into their own hands, piecing together what they can of the dead Colonel’s life. That gets harder to do as more and more comes to the forefront. I won’t give any spoilers but I appreciate how the author uses the opinions of the time he sets his story in to help us navigate. It makes the world more believable. Of course Eric feels distant and isn’t entirely welcome at the Britannia club at first, he’s half-Chinese. He didn’t even grow up in England! The fact that he fought for the country does nothing to ingratiate him to his peers. Moreover, time and time again, Eric and everyone else tend to underestimate the women in the novel, something commonplace both then and now. They act as though a woman in her twenties is a child, that no woman could have a sex life, and on and on…leading to more than a few misunderstandings.

As I said, it took me a while to get into the story, but once I was in, I was sat. I hope that the formatting issues are all taken care of before publishing because it made some passages hard to understand, making it hard to retain. And I am one of those readers who grew up watching shows like Scooby Doo and Murder, She Wrote. I like trying to solve the mystery as I read. And with this novel, the mysteries kept piling up.

On another note, the narrative tone is a bit dry but it actually suits the initial portrayal of Eric and develops more as the plot progresses. This may be a series I keep in my TBR.

Let me know what mysteries you think I should read next in the comments!

A murder in a gentlemen's club set in post WWI London kicks off the second in Christopher Huang's Eric Peterkin's series. Eric is now the secretary of the Britannica Club, a club for military men. The victim is Colonel Russell, the popular president of the club. Colonel Russell's four sons were lost in the war. Since then he has kept close to his daughters in law, four very different women. The Colonel is killed shortly after an officer who served with the Colonel's sons returns to London and the club. What is his connection with the murder? What do the daughter in laws know? This is a clever and complex story, one with many layers of secrets. I found it to be an excellent mystery.

Christopher Huang layers in impeccably researched historical facts and prevailing attitudes in his books but they don't feel heavy-handed. A Pretender's Murder is the second in the Eric Peterkin series - hopefully many, many more to come. The story digs into identity, loyalty, assumptions, grief, PTSD, and other psychological issues, reminiscent of the Maisie Dobbs series.

After Eric solves the murder in his club in the first book, he settles into being the Club Secretary for the Brittania, a club that reveres veterans who served and may not have come home from the Great War. As a half-Asian man, he is viewed by the club members as an outsider, yet it is exactly that status that allows him to be a great observer, coming in handy when yet another murder happens in the club. Eric pieces together the many factors leading to the unmasking of the murderer, while simultaneously uncovering espionage during the war and a doppelganger.

Christopher Huang has become a favorite writer. A Pretender's Murder, like his previous novels, embraces the twists and turns and unexpected events and people that surprise readers. Unnatural Ends was the first novel that I read by Huang, and what I have learned as to give this author time to explore the story and delve into the characters. In A Pretender's Murder, readers once again meet Eric Peterkin, who is seemingly thrust into solving a murder and a couple of mysteries he did not expect to solve.

Golden Age Mysteries are a favorite genre of mine. Huang has figured pout how to embrace this genre and how to create the intrigue that defines the genre. There is much history to explore in the Great War and the years immediately following, which have fed the Golden Age Mystery genre. A Pretender's Murder is book 2 in a series, with A Gentleman's Murder first introducing readers to Peterkin. And although A Pretender's Murder is the second book in the series, this mystery also works as a stand alone mystery. Huang writes thoughtfully, with careful pacing, without rushing readers through the story. The plot and characters slowly unfold, with deceptions that will surprise readers.

I do recommend A Pretender's Murder. Thank you to Inkshare Publishers and NetGalley for providing me with this ARC in exchange for my review. I did enjoy A Pretender's Murder very much. It is clever and smart and is able to pull readers into the narrative. Anyone fond of well-paced mysteries will enjoy this novel.

5 stars

A Pretenders Murder is a delightful adventure into England of a century ago. It has all the elements necessary for a first rate mystery and is especially good at capturing the flavor of the Golden Age of mysteries. Lt. Peterkin is an admirable detective to rival Poirot or Alleyn or Campion. (He's not up to the Lord Peter novels.)
Lt. Peterkin has the onerous duty of securing the reputation of the venerable men's club he runs after the locked room murder of Col. Russell, a distinguished veteran who has paid the ultimate price in the Great War after all 4 of his sons die in combat. He is surrounded by his seemingly devoted daughters-in-law. Like a great game of clue no one is who the seem to be, nor where they are supposed to have been, and each of the DIL has a secret that puts them in jeopardy. And like all good mysteries of the space between the world wars, this one has character pretending to be someone else or pretending to have a nobility undeserved. It is all wrapped up in true Golden Age fashion with Peterkin confronting the murderer (s) in the drawing room.
This reader was enchanted by A Pretender's Murder. It has all the features of my favorite mysteries that introduced me to the genre as a young reader. It's easy to read in one sitting and be very satisfied when the last sentence is read.
Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC. This is an independent review.

Such a great mystery that takes place after the great war. So many twists and turns that kept me at the edge of my seat. The characters were interesting and the overall plot was engaging. The slow pace of the novel let me fully sink into the world created by Christopher Huang.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC of this book!
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

This is a layered, thoughtful mystery centered around Eric Peterkin, a veteran of the Great War. While the murder mystery itself is engaging, it’s the rich social commentary that truly stands out. Christopher Huang skillfully weaves themes of race, class, gender expectations, and the lingering psychological toll of war—not only on veterans, but on the families who live in its aftermath.

Although I didn’t read the first book in the series, I had no trouble getting to know the characters. I especially enjoyed the dynamic between the four sisters-in-law—it added warmth and intrigue to the narrative.

I gave it four stars instead of five because the pacing lagged at times and my attention wandered occasionally. Still, it's a well-written novel with a compelling plot and a lot of depth.

Christopher Huang continues Eric Peterikin's story from A Gentleman's Murder with another mystery set at the Britannia Club. There is much mystery and intrigue as Peterkin follows the various threads connected with the Great War and a prominent family at the Club.

Huang is definitely an author to look out for. I can't remember ever reading a contemporary writer emulating golden age mysteries so well. And with a main character that has neither suspiciously modern views, nor is a vehicle for the author grieving about the good old days, where you could still be racist. Peterkin is posh, but he's also mixed-race, so he is still an outsider. He views things differently than his white contemporaries. But not everything. While he has a charming relationship with his sister, he's still surprised (and slightly shocked), when he realises, that she has different plans than demurely sitting at home for the rest of her life. It's all really well done
And then the mystery is also brilliantly done. It's full of twists and turns and moments that make you think you've figured it out, only to go somewhere completely different a page later.

"Everything always seems to start with the War," says Eric Peterkin, secretary of the Britannia Club and amateur sleuth. I'm not a huge fan of World War I novels—truly a conflict so horrible that it beggars the imagination—but I enjoyed Christopher Huang's previous book, "Unnatural Ends," enough to give "A Pretender's Murder" a try.

Eric has recently been appointed to his position at London's Britannia Club, which, with its membership of ex-servicemen, is the sort of genteel place where men who survived battle now sit around and drink gin and tonics and smoke cigars. Colonel Russell is one of the club's most prominent members; it's 1925, a few years after the end of WWI, and the Colonel lost all four of his sons in the conflict. Their names now adorn the club's Roster of the Fallen. All four of his daughters-in-law gather at the club every Friday to have lunch.

When the Colonel is killed at the club, Eric begins to investigate his murder. Could it have something to do with Captain Gregory Ward, recently returned to London after spending several years in a Swiss sanitarium, who just reactivated his membership at the Britannia? The novel's title promises a "pretender," after all, and there is more to Ward than meets the eye.

There is a lot of heavy material in this book—besides the grief that still marks the Russell sons' widows, Eric himself struggles with bouts of PTSD, as the violence he confronts in the present day causes him to flash back on his memories of the war. Huang is an elegant prose stylist, though, and I enjoyed all of the historical detail he puts into the book: German dueling scars, the spiritualism craze, the suburban growth of London, and Citroën's massive advertisement on the Eiffel Tower are a few of the interesting elements we encounter en route to the unmasking of the murderer.

I requested this book after reading its description - a Golden Age murder mystery sounded interesting. Set in 1925 London, the story revolves around the death of Colonel Russell at the exclusive Britannia Club. We unravel the whodunit alongside Eric Peterkin, new club secretary and amateur sleuth.

However, I was somewhat stumped by the slow pacing and found it really difficult to get into the characters. The action starts only 1/8th into the book, and thank goodness I ploughed through to the starting line. From then on, things started to pick up. Everyone around Colonel Russell seems to harbour their own secrets and complex interpersonal relationships. It was a joy trying to sniff out the murderer.

I haven't read the first book and have no context of Peterkin's background, though I think that did not affect the enjoyment of this mystery.

Thank you to NetGalley, Inkshares and the author for an ARC!

This is the second book in the series, but I had no trouble jumping right into Eric Peterkin’s second foray into detective work. I didn’t read the first book and was pleasantly surprised that this also works as a standalone book. The story pulled me in blending historical fiction, suspense, and classic whodunnit elements.

The book opens with lieutenant Eric Peterkin taking on the role of secretary at the Brittanica - a club for former soldiers of the Great War. We quickly meet Colonial Russell, The Brittanica’s acting president, and his family. When Colonial Russell is found dead after being pushed out of a window, Eric reprises his role as a detective to find the killer.

The book's historical setting is one of its standout features. I’m not a historian, but Huang has a knack for immersing readers in 1925 London, capturing the social dynamics of post-war London with subtlety and depth. Societal expectations, post-war trauma and grief, and the political landscape are all woven into the fabric of the story, giving readers a strong sense of the time period.

Huang does an excellent job of keeping the reader on their toes with clever plot twists and unexpected revelations. The pacing is slower, with enough tension building up throughout the novel to keep readers intrigued without feeling rushed.

A Pretender’s Murder is an enjoyable and thought-provoking historical mystery that showcases Christopher Huang's storytelling abilities.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced digital copy of this book. This review is my personal opinion.

I love a good whodunit as much as the next person, and I started out enthusiastically, but when my enthusiasm started to flag (oh look, another dead body), and I realized I was less than halfway through, I gave up.

The Pretense Murder by Christopher Huang is easily my book of the year. From the first page to the last, this book is a masterclass in how to craft a historical mystery. Every small detail—whether it’s a Roman mosaic wall tucked away in the Britannia Club or a bottle of German whiskey—ends up playing a major role in the bigger plot. That kind of layered storytelling is rare and brilliant.

The twist that Alice killed her father-in-law, Colonel Russell, after discovering he had sold information to the Germans (leading to the deaths of her husband and his brothers), was deeply emotional and powerfully revealed. Detective Eric was an absolute standout—clever, steady, and relentless. The unraveling of Karl's impersonation of Ward, the séance scenes, the death of Dr. Duplessis, and the way it all ties together in the final chapters left me in awe. I hadn't read A Gentleman's Murder before this, but now I can’t wait to go back and read the first book in the series. Huang’s writing is intelligent, elegant, and addictive.