I bought this because it was by the same author as the Railway Detective series, which I'd found enjoyable at the "read once" level. This is the fourth in the Restoration series, a mystery series about architect Christopher Redmayne and constable Jonathan Bale, set in Restoration London in the years following the Great Fire of 1666. I haven't previously read any in this series, but found that this worked well as a standalone, with enough backstory worked in to be able to follow who people were.

A naked corpse is found frozen into the sheet of ice that has covered the Thames, and the most obvious suspect is Christopher's rake of a brother, who wakes up after a drunken night to find himself arrested and flung into Newgate. Christopher is convinced of his brother's innocence, not just out of filial loyalty but because he is only too aware of his brother's vices -- and violence is not among them. His friend Jonathan, on the other hand, is convinced of Henry's guilt, and not just because the Puritan Jonathan disapproves of Henry's lifestyle. The evidence at the scene is all too damning. But both men feel that justice will not be done unless the matter is properly investigated. And investigate they do, following parallel lines of enquiry and sharing their information. Along the way there's some excellent world-building about the re-building of the world of London after the Great Fire. I don't know the period well enough to say how accurate it is, but Marston has created an enjoyable picture of a culture that is both alien and familiar.

I think I like this one a little better than I did the Railway Detective series, possibly because rather than in spite of coming in part way through the series -- there's far less overt info-dumping in this one than in the first Railway Detective book I read. I'd be happy to read more of these, although I'm not going to rush out looking for them; in part because a quick look at the blurbs on the author's website suggests there is very little character arc development through the series for the continuing characters and their lives outside the mystery-solving, something I found rather frustrating in the Railway Detective books. ( )

The book was a pleasant enough read but a gripping page turner...NOT! I am not a particularly good mystery reader but this one did not strike me as high quality in that department.

I do like historical fiction and that is what I enjoyed in this book. There could have been more description of London during the time of the rebuilding of London following the great fire. But what did interest me was the social interaction of the upper class that went on in the book. It seemed real but a bit on the bland side for my taste. ( )

Waiting for this to be published in ebook format