The Curse of Ill-Gotten Gains, by Stephanie Laurens

November 10, 2025 Lark_Bookwyrm Book Reviews 1 ★★

The Curse of Ill-Gotten Gains by Stephanie Laurens
Series: Casebook of Barnaby Adair #12
Published by self-published on 10/14/2025
Genres: Historical Mystery
Pages: 332
Format: Kindle or ebook
Source: purchased
Purchase: Amazon | Bookshop | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Audible
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two-stars

Also by this author: A Match for Marcus Cynster, By Winter's Light, The Lady's Command, The Greatest Challenge of Them All, A Conquest Impossible to Resist, The Obsessions of Lord Godfrey Cavanaugh

#1 NYT-bestselling author Stephanie Laurens is back with a complex case in which her favorite sleuths must wade through the attendees of a ton house party to discover which one was moved to murder their host.

When the genial and highly regarded Sir Montague Underhill is found murdered in his own orchard, Inspector Stokes is dispatched, together with Barnaby and Penelope Adair, to Patchcote Grange to uncover the culprit. But a fashionable house party provides a large cast of potential suspects, and when the investigators learn what business Sir Montague had been dabbling in, the challenge before them grows even larger.

Richard Percival has bowed to familial pressure and agreed to attend a tonnish house party at Patchcote Grange, where the gathering’s unabashed aim is to introduce eligible gentlemen to suitable young ladies. Two of Richard’s elderly aunts have assured him that Miss Rosalind Hemmings will make him the perfect wife, and after meeting Miss Hemmings over dinner on the first evening of the party, Richard is sufficiently intrigued to be willing to learn—indeed, he’s even looking forward to learning—more of the unusually direct young lady.

But on coming downstairs the following morning, he hears an anguished scream for help. On racing outside to the orchard from whence the scream came, he finds his possibly-intended standing over the very dead body of their universally well-regarded host, Sir Montague Underhill. This is clearly a matter for Scotland Yard, and Richard wastes no time in summoning Barnaby and Penelope Adair and Inspector Stokes to the company’s aid. For, indeed, very soon, it becomes blatantly clear that the murderer is one of those presently residing in the house.

On arriving at the Grange, Penelope, Barnaby, and Stokes are confronted with a dauntingly large cast of potential suspects. Wedding through the throng takes time, but on uncovering Sir Montague’s private means of earning a little extra cash, it becomes ever more likely that his murderer is, indeed, one of the guests at the house. All too soon, the questions facing the investigators become whether Sir Montague learned a secret someone was desperate to conceal, and if so, what secret was powerful enough to compel an otherwise reasonable man to murder?

A historical novel of 85,000 words interweaving mystery, crime, and a touch of romance.

Slow, plodding, and flat

What on earth has happened to Stephanie Laurens? She seems to have largely abandoned writing romances and turned to mystery. The problem is, she’s not always good at it, especially when she omits the passion, emotion, and spirited characters that epitomized her best romances. The Curse of Ill-Gotten Gains is a case in point. The pace is glacial, the characters are flat, and the mystery was ridiculously easy to solve: I spotted the murderer in the first couple of chapters based on his lack of alibi, and had a fairly good idea of his motive pretty early on. The “investigators” (Barnaby and Penelope Adair and their friend Inspector Stokes), on the other hand, conducted days of repetitive, mind-numbingly boring interviews with the 29 remaining members of the house party, every single one of which appears on-page, in detail. The investigators missed several opportunities to ask the right question or follow up on something the witness had said or avoided saying, any of which would have sped up the investigation. The one major bombshell was the murder victim’s secret, which was revealed pretty early in the book; frankly, his secret was so out of character that I found it as unbelievable as the characters did.

As for the so-called romance, it hardly qualifies. It seems almost an afterthought, and receives very little page time. There’s no chemistry, no depth of feeling, and little to suggest that a union between the couple would be much more than a friendly marriage of convenience with someone suitable and sensible. There’s no suspense—none in the relationship, and none to speak of in the mystery plot. The contrast with Laurens’ bestselling, vividly-imagined Cynster and Bastion Club romances is stark.

In light of all that, it seems petty to complain that Laurens also fails to get several historical details correct—but I’m going to anyway, because it drives me nuts. For instance, Penelope introduces herself to the guests of the house party as “Mrs. Penelope Adair.” Setting aside the fact that she should not be the one to speak first and introduce herself (Barnaby should have done that, or Inspector Stokes), she would also never have spoken of herself as “Mrs. Penelope Adair.” As I understand it, that styling was for widows. Penelope is properly “Mrs. Barnaby Adair,” and would be addressed as Mrs. Adair; she would only share her first name with those whom she considered friends. It’s the sort of thing that can throw me entirely out of the story, breaking the suspension of disbelief—if I were engrossed in the story to begin with (which I was not.)

This isn’t the first of Laurens’s recent self-published novels to disappoint me. I have bought several of her recent books more out of nostalgia and hope than any real conviction that they will be as good as her early novels. At this point, though, I’m ready to give up on her altogether. I’ll stick to rereading the best of her backlist whenever I’m in the mood for the once-vaunted Laurens flair.

Challenges: COYER 2025: Out to Lunch