A Darker God A Laetitia Talbot Mystery

by Cleverly, Barbara

• ISBN13: 9780385339919
• ISBN10: 0385339917
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-03-23
• Publisher: Bantam

Summary

Aspiring archaeologist and occasional detective Laetitia Talbot returns to 1920s Greece to stop a brutal killer in award-winning author Cleverly's new mystery.

Author Biography

Barbara Cleverly is an award-winning writer of seven novels including the New York Times Notable Book The Last Kashmiri Rose. She lives in Cambridge, England. Delta publishes both Ms. Cleverly's Joe Sandilands novels and her acclaimed Laetitia Talbot series (Bright Hair About the Bone) in the United States.

Excerpts

Chapter 1




May 16, 1928. London.

 George the Second, High King of the Hellenes, was decidedly not on his way back home to Greece. He would have been turned back at the border had he attempted to enter the country, his passport confiscated. He was striding about his room in Brown's Hotel in the heart of Mayfair, dressing for the evening's performance at Covent Garden. He hummed a snatch of the opera he'd seen the night before: Siegfried. Tonight he would enjoy Tannhauser and, after a day to recruit his strength, Gotterdamerung.

He posed himself before the cheval glass checking his tailcoat and white tie with a critical eye. His valet stood by anxiously with a clothes brush in hand. After a well-judged interval, an imperious finger pointed to a thread, a speck, a flake, invisible to any but the kingly eye. The valet silently flicked with the brush, tilted his head and surveyed the royal shoulder afresh, administered a second judicious flick, and stood back. Brooking was on loan from the Marquis of Melton to the King of the Hellenes for the duration of his stay in London, and Brooking was longing for the Wagner season to be over.

The evening clothes were perfect and perfectly fitted the elegant figure. Fussy bugger, was Brooking's opinion of his temporary master--but a rewarding man to dress. He knew how to wear a suit, all right. In the prime of his life--thirty-eight years old according to his passport (Brooking had checked)--his spine was as straight as a flagpole, his shoulders square, his bearing reflecting his formative years in the Prussian Guard. Unable to challenge the valet further, George lingered in front of the mirror, as he always did, apparently finding surprising and rather distasteful the image of himself in anything other than uniform. An active soldier, he had risen to the rank of Major General in the war against Turkey and had been devastated when he had been stripped of his military rank, along with his Greek nationality and his possessions, four years before. Forced out of office and into exile by a Revolutionary Committee. A committee led by a man who had become his personal enemy, his cynical tormentor.

But it could have been worse. At least he'd fared better than his Russian kindred; George II Oldenburg still had his handsome head on his shoulders. And the courts of Europe, many of them stocked with German relations of one sort or another, welcomed him. With Queen Victoria as his great-grandmamma, what doors would not open to him? He was a notable and sought-after figure on the social scene. "And, of course, George of Greece will be of the party . . ." were the words every hostess longed to utter.

"Your Majesty will be unaccompanied this evening?" Brooking thought he'd better check arrangements.

This evening, George would be sharing a box at the Royal Opera House with a crowd of like-minded Wagner lovers and he did not for one moment give any sign that he pined for the presence of his dark and beautiful queen at his elbow. His wife, Elisabeth, had elected to live out the years of exile in her own country of Romania, where from time to time, and increasingly rarely, George joined her. They had no children and were no longer intime. He remembered with a shudder one of her more reckless pronouncements. With a face like Medea she'd said: "I've committed every vice in my life except murder, and I don't want to die without doing that either." And she'd smiled at him. George had no intention of providing the means of fulfilling his queen's last desire.

"I go alone," he told Brooking with satisfaction.

A brisk tap at the door prompted a curt "See who that is."

The valet returned, unable to conceal a slight tension. "A gentleman wishes to see you, sir."

"At this unreasonable hour? Everyone's dressing! Why have they let him up?"

"I have explained that you are engaged for the evening, but he is most insistent. A young

---

Excerpted from A Darker God: A Laetitia Talbot Mystery by Barbara Cleverly
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.