1901, the Inner Temple, London. Gabriel Ward KC has landed the case of the year – a libel case defending Miss Topsy Tillotson, star of the music halls, from a claim of lewd behaviour made by a member of the gentry. As the tabloid newspapers begin to salivate over that story, something far more chilling is taking place behind the walls of the Temple.

Sir William Waring, the Temple Treasurer, receives a mummified hand in the post. And he’s only the first, each parcel containing a body part and a sarcastic note… Who would do such a thing? As Gabriel begins to suspect that the packages are originating inside the Temple, it seems that someone is nursing a grudge – a grudge that will end in death.

I was pondering what to do for my 1800^th review so I prepared a list of my other centenary reviews to see what I’d done in the past. And the answer was… not much. I usually forgot all about the anniversaries until it was too late, apart from The Hollow Man for review 1000. So I decided that I wouldn’t read anything special, just an overdue new release review from NetGalley. And you know what? It was something special after all.

This is the second book in the Gabriel Ward series. I did rather like the first one, A Case Of Mice And Murder, but was wary of this one, simply due to second-book-syndrome. Well, I was delighted to see that Sally Smith completely avoided that, because while I liked the first book, I loved this one.

Gabriel is a great lead. A mildly quirky lead character, the quirk being that he has led a sheltered, lonely life in the Temple but now finds himself faced with letting people into his life. I really enjoyed his ventures into “real life” and the development of his friendship with Constable Wright, his police colleague, is rather charming, as is his relationship with Topsy, who I thought was a great chracter. And of course, there’s Delphinium the cat…

But the mystery, I hear you ask? Well, it’s really interesting. There’s a multitude of strands, all of which weave together in unexpected ways. The pacing is very interesting too – like a certain classic (and disappointing) legal murder mystery, the explicit murder is reasonably late in the narrative, but there’s plenty to keep the reader occupied until that happens. It’s clued – there’s one rather lovely unasked question that’s important to the plot. I’ll wager you won’t ask it either, but when Ward points it out, you’ll wonder why not.

So, an ideal candidate after all for my eighteenth centenary post – a charming, clever mystery that is definitely worth checking out. First rate.