A Ghastly Catastrophe | Deanne Raybourn

I've absolutely devoured each and every Veronica Speedwell mystery and this was no exception. Was it my all-time favorite? No. But it's really good and I was delighted to see in her notes that she's going to keep writing them as long as she has ideas to do so. I'm in!

Veronica and steamy Stoker are suffering from a lack of excitement. Despite it being Victorian England, no new mysterious dead bodies have shown up of late and they're, well, itching for a case. And they find it in an aristocratic gentleman whose death looks suspiciously like a vampire blood-draining. Along the way they encounter a secret society and more.

They don't travel far afield as in some of the earlier stories, but it's great fun. Veronica's prodigious vocabulary is put to great use, as in all the other books, and there's just enough romance to keep it spicy. It could stand on its own, but the whole series is so great it's most satisfying to start at the beginning.