Another sparkling historical mystery in this popular series set in eighteenth-century France and featuring husband-and-wife duo Colonel Paul de Saint-Martin and Anne Cartier. The growing unrest among the peasants and the citizens' disillusionment with the aristocratic French government result in the storming of the Bastille. In the chaos that follows, an innocent baker is hanged by a band of furious citizens who have been roiled into a frenzy by a thug named Gaillard. Then one of Paul's colleagues is murdered, and once again, Gaillard seems to be involved. With the police reluctant to investigate, the mayor of Paris calls on Paul to help. And, of course, when Paul is involved, so is Anne. Surrounded by the ever-growing fury of the citizenry, Anne and Paul find their own lives in terrible danger, attempting to bring even a semblance of order to a society caught up in revolutionary fervor. As always, O'Brien has meticulously researched the setting and events at the time of his story and has turned a simple murder mystery into a gripping historical read, rife with far-reaching context.

Publishers Weekly, June 16, 2008

Amateur sleuth Anne Cartier and her husband, Col. Paul de Saint-Martin, must discover the identity of the person who's been inciting riots that provoke the brutal assassination of two of Paris's highest functionaries-and the power behind the inciter-in O'Brien's gripping seventh mystery set in revolutionary France (after 2007's Cruel Choices). Might the killings be connected to a miniature portrait of a pretty young woman salvaged from the rubble of the recently stormed Bastille prison? The mob lynching of a troublemaking baker raises the stakes. This entry is more rooted in actual historical events than previous books in the series, and readers familiar with the period will appreciate the skill with which the author blends his heroes' fictional investigation with fact. Some, though, may stumble over words like "syndic" whose meanings are less than obvious. As usual, O'Brien portrays major characters as complex people and sketches minor ones with a sure hand.