The Circle

March 14, 2016
Set in 1868, Trow’s so-so sequel to 2015’s The Blue and the Grey pivots on the death of Lafayette Baker, the head of the U.S. National Detective Police. In a prologue set in a Philadelphia rooming house, Lafayette has a fatal encounter with a man identified only as Wally. Wally acts on behalf of a shadowy figure, who assures him that he has acted in the nation’s interest. Luther Baker, a cousin of Lafayette’s, recruits British private inquiry agents Matthew Grand and James Batchelor to investigate, giving them a literal blank check to do so. The pair quickly find evidence of arsenic poisoning to support Luther’s theory of foul play, and their client sets them on the track of Edwin Stanton, the former Secretary of War, whose removal from office leads to Andrew Johnson’s impeachment, and whose absence from Ford’s Theatre the night Lincoln was shot raised suspicions of involvement in Booth’s plot. Underdeveloped leads, a lack of genuine surprises, and a failure to evoke the tensions of postbellum America are all negatives.

May 1, 2016

In their second investigation (after The Blue and the Grey), American Matthew Grand and Englishman James Batchelor are hired by Matthew's cousin Luther to investigate the death (or was it murder?) of Lafayette Baker. The enquiry agents arrive in Washington, DC, from London, and find a city still raw and on edge in the aftermath of the Civil War. The list of suspects on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line includes saloon owners, brothel keepers, and gamblers, not to mention members of the newly formed Ku Klux Klan. Belle Boyd, a former Confederate spy now called Mrs. Hardinge, knows more than she is willing to share with Grand and Batchelor, despite her history with Grand. Making cameo appearances are important figures of the Reconstruction era, such as Andrew Johnson, Nathan Bedford Forrest, and Edwin Stanton. Trow's characters are fully realized and the relationship between Grand and Batchelor is humorous. VERDICT Trow's absorbing historical will please Civil War buffs as well as readers who relish the mysteries of Will Thomas and Charles Finch.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2016
London, 1868. James Batchelor, a British journalist, and Matthew Grand, a former U.S. army officer, have set themselves up as private investigators. When they receive a commission to investigate the suspicious death of Lafayette Baker, former head of the U.S. National Detective Police, they head to Washington, D.C., to start their inquiries. What they find is a city still bitterly divided in the aftermath of the Civil War and a country suffering from the shock of President Lincoln's assassination. They also find that Baker had many enemies. Their mission is as frustrating as it is complex, with so many leads and so many possible killers to investigate. While they do eventually crack the case, the attraction of the storywhich features a disparate and often-meandering plot packed with skulduggery, fallen women, political conspiracies, violence, spousal abuse, corruption, the Ku Klux Klan, prostitution, and grave robbingis less about the case and more about the sense of history that serves as its backdrop, the interplay between Grand and Batchelor, and the manner in which they manage their sometimes dangerous, sometimes comic, sometimes bizarre adventures.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)