I am not going to take you on top of a moldy sarcophagus.

CBR12 BINGO: Red

I am already worried about the day when Raybourn stops writing these Veronica Speedwell mysteries. Truly. These books and Sherry Thomas’ Lady Sherlock series are what fill the little hole in my heart that Gail Carriger left when the Parasols and Protectorate series ended. I need my witty banter laced with sexual tension. I yearn for characters with quirky occupations, impeccable fashion sense and taste for tea and sweets.

Give me passages like this and I am satisified:

“Veronica,” he said flatly, ” I am not going to take you on top of a moldy sarcophagus. I do not require love poems and fireworks, but kindly grant me a better audience than a stuffed wildebeest and a pack of sausage-breathed hounds.” (For accuracy’s sake, I should note that he did have a fondness for Keats, and the hounds did have sausage breath, but the wildebeest was, in point of fact, a gnu.)

See what I mean? Delightful. At this point, I’m not sure I am capable of being disappointed in one of these books. They are always a treat.

This time around Veronica and Stoker find themselves entangled in another situation with the monarchy. As Jack the Ripper has the East End of London gripped in terror, the Royal family is dealing with the delicate matter of a princely indiscretion. Wishing to keep the investigation on the relative down-low, Veronica is taxed with retrieving a gift that the Prince of Wales has bestowed upon a lady of ill-repute; a gift with recognizable ties to the royal family.

Cue a high-end kinky brothel, a stuffed quagga, and a dastardly relative with nine lives! There are lots of sweets, some tea, copious amounts of witty banter and sexual tension and, at one point, a crown made of fox teeth. If you haven’t read any of the Veronica Speedwell mysteries yet, you are in luck. This is fifth in the series so you can devour all five in a row. I am beyond jealous.