I'm such a sucker for stories set in the 18th century! And I love the Dr. Thomas Silkstone series books by Harris, so this book was a delight to read for me.

Lydia and Thomas ce again partner to investigate a murder mystery, this time centering on some stolen artifacts from India, which happens because of the rules surrounding the 18th century English colonization of India. Racism features prominently, as well as disdain for the "other."

The mystery is well-hidden and revealed effectively, as with all Harris's novels, and I enjoyed the tension between Lydia and Thomas as it continues to develop.

Ladies, anatomists and precious stones.

The first two pages are terrific. But unfortunately, I was not able to hold my attention to the rest of the story. Might be my personal nitpick, though.

If you enjoy old-fashioned period mysteries, you might like this. I haven't read any of the other books in the series, but if you read and enjoyed them, I'm sure you'll like this. It's perfectly well-executed, but it couldn't hold my attention for more than a couple chapters at a time. I'm usually a pretty fast reader, but this book felt like it took years to get through because I just could not bring myself to take any interest in anything that happened. The mystery wasn't interesting, the characters weren't interesting, nothing about it was actually interesting for me.

It isn't even bad in any significant way, just painfully dull. It wasn't even interesting enough to hate.