In Juden’s historical novel, an English butler and his American employer investigate the murders of war widows in England’s interwar period.

In 1920 London, Martin Hackworth works as the butler at the recently inherited estate of wealthy American William Mitchell. Mitchell has recently returned to England after an adventure in the United States with Hackworth and Mitchell’s mutual friend, Major Griffin, and Mitchell’s lover, Miss Eisen—neither of whom survived. (Griffin was the protagonist of the author’s previous mystery series; Juden provides plenty of details, sprinkling in references that intrigue rather than confuse to allow readers to appreciate this novel without having read the earlier books.) Hackworth and Mitchell are drawn into a mystery when two women are murdered. Detectives arrive to question Mitchell, who knew the victims and has connections to London’s nightlife. Hackworth’s young niece, Mary Fielding, a war widow, asks him to accompany her and her medium friend, Helen Osborn, to France—Mary wants to find her husband’s body and put his spirit to rest. Mitchell decides to come along and help fund the venture. During the journey, the men become closer than their work relationship typically allows—Mitchell’s rascally American nature breaks through Hackworth’s stuffy and professional reserve. Juden’s narrative is full of intrigue and comedy, and his descriptions of the settings are richly detailed: “The Citröen rattled down the narrow lane and into a small village, where stone walls and low stucco houses lined each side of the road.” The one issue that mars the story is the treatment of the one Chinese character, who’s often referred to simply as “the Chinaman.” This character, based on the real-life Chan Nan, is an unredeemable villain throughout the novel, characterized by his conniving mistreatment of women. (Juden does note this issue in the acknowledgments, stating that he “strived to keep the language and attitudes in the book consistent with the times. Sadly, some language and attitudes were unattractive then and now.”) Still, the novel delivers an exciting and intriguing mystery.

Jeeves and Wooster meet Sherlock Holmes in a diverting period whodunit.

A battle-scarred WWI veteran travels to Jazz Age Paris to find the missing daughter of a New York financier in Juden’s debut novel.

John Griffin dropped out of college to go to war and has just returned from Europe. He suffered some scarring, but his psychological damage runs deeper. John finds peacetime concerns to be trivial (“How could the humdrum, meaningless, contemptible lives of so many of the people I saw daily...warrant the extinction of the men I knew?”). He is aimless in New York when a Wall Street financier asks him to go on a mission. Harry Armistan’s daughter Patricia has married an Englishman named Gavin Kingsbury. They were supposed to visit Italy for their honeymoon, but they have disappeared. Harry has a financial stake in the matter also; Gavin was supposed to deliver some documents to men in London, but he didn’t. Intrigued, and encouraged by the large sum of money Harry is offering, John accepts the offer and sets out to find the missing couple. In England, Gavin’s sister, Sarah, becomes a distraction and a complication for John’s investigation, and a journey to Paris raises the stakes when it becomes clear that Europe’s fragile peace is under threat. Juden’s historical thriller transports the reader back in time and gives a convincing account of the postwar experience at home and abroad. John is battle weary but still young and eager for adventure while cunning enough to not buckle while handling a complex job. Many scenes are lengthy and the story is somewhat protracted, but the century-old settings are both familiar and sleek, and the characters (including real historical figures, such as war hero and jazz musician Eugene Bullard) are mysterious enough to keep the action scenes interesting.

A rousing adventure in jazzy post–WWI Europe.