Limey Sleuths

For many people, Victorian England evokes images of delicate ladies sitting on couches and sipping tea. But research librarian, Victorian scholar and novelist Will Thomas knows it was also a dangerous time. "The Victorian era was sort of the start of our modern world," Thomas explains. "The people then were facing terrifying events, just as now. There was anarchy and terrorism and, you know, Jack the Ripper." Uh, point taken.

Thomas has written four novels exploring the darkness and turmoil of that time period, each of them starring the sleuths Cyrus Barker and Thomas Llewelyn. In his latest, The Limehouse Text, the duo hunts the killer of Barker's Chinese assistant Quong. With a pawn shop receipt as their only clue, the two descend into the shadowy underworld beneath London's Chinatown. There they find a sacred martial arts manual that leads them deeper into the investigation but also puts them in great peril. We'd like to tell you what's in the manual, but we'd have to, well, you know...

Thomas reads from Limehouseat Murder by the Book at 4 p.m. Stick around to hear Carolyn Haines, famous for her mysteries set in the modern-day Mississippi Delta, read from her latest, Penumbra, at 6:30 p.m.
Thu., July 20, 6:30 p.m.