DEATH IN HELLFIRE

In Lake's continuing series featuring John Rawlings, apothecary and investigator, Rawlings sets out to uncover the goings-on in the Hellfire Club, after reports of possible Satanism. Rawlings goes undercover as an Irish nobleman and is invited to participate in the club's "entertainments," which he does with gusto. Untroubled by dissolute aristocrats engaging with prostitutes, Rawlings soon becomes disturbed to find himself confronting murder most foul. Eighteenth-century London is well served by narrator Michael Tudor Barnes in this tale of promiscuity and perversion in a gentlemen's club. Barnes displays an impressive flair for accents as he portrays characters ranging from London streetwalkers to French tradesmen. Barnes’s credible handling of descriptions of place builds strong visual images. Top-notch historical fiction. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine [Published: JANUARY 2010]