The In Crowd: A Novel

by Charlotte Vassell Narrated by Damian Lynch, Genevieve Gaunt

Overview

From the celebrated author of The Other Half comes a fabulous whodunit about two cold cases in which things go missing: a fourteen-year-old girl and a multi-million-dollar pension fund.

Early one morning, a men's rowing team discovers a body floating face down in the Thames. Many years before, the chief executive of a clothing manufacturer walked off with a multi-million dollar corporate retirement fund and disappeared without a trace. Now, the discovery of this body has reopened that cold case.*

Meanwhile, Detective Inspector Caius Beauchamp has his own evening at the theater upended by the discovery of a dead body just a few seats away. Two decades ago, Eliza Chapel, a fourteen-year-old student at a girls boarding school in Cornwall, disappeared in the middle of the night under dubious circumstances. A second body and a second cold case reopened.*

As DI Caius Beauchamp-along with his associates Matt Chung and Amy Noakes-investigates these parallel missing persons cases, he finds himself ensnared in the unexpected political machinations of a duke-in-waiting. This is yet another masterful mystery from Charlotte Vassell that is every bit as pointed as it is poignant.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

06/24/2024

Detective Caius Beauchamp returns in Vassell’s inventive second mystery chronicling the bad behavior of England’s upper crust (after The Other Half). When a rowing team discovers a dead body floating in the Thames, it looks more like a tragic suicide than a crime. But Caius’s investigation soon links the body to two seemingly unconnected cold cases: the decades-old disappearance of a teenage girl from a Cornish boarding school and the vanishing of an apparel executive who ran off with his company’s pension fund and was never seen again. Caius launches inquiries into all three cases, which are complicated by the interference of a high-ranking politician with murky motives, as well as the detective’s tentative romance with Callie Foster, an upscale milliner, who may be a witness to at least one of the crimes. Caius’s quirky investigative partners, Matt Chung and Amy Noakes, also return, and the interplay among the three is even richer than in the previous entry. Vassell has wicked fun shifting narrators and timelines, and her satire remains sharp, but she stumbles while tying up the mystery’s loose ends. Still, fans of the first book will enjoy themselves. Agent: Jon Wood, RCW Literary. (Aug.)

From the Publisher

[A] smart, provocative novel. . . . Vassell perfectly constructs a classic crime procedural against a backdrop of racism, sexism, and classism. Beauchamp is a winning character readers will adore. . . . Readers don’t need to have read The Other Half to enjoy this intriguing novel, but reading both is as satisfying as pairing a cup of Earl Grey and a lavender biscuit. In the final pages, Vassell lays the groundwork for a third installment that promises to be as enjoyable as the ones that preceded it. A stellar sophomore outing for an intriguing detective.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Detective Caius Beauchamp returns in Vassell’s inventive second mystery chronicling the bad behavior of England’s upper crust. . . . Caius’s quirky investigative partners, Matt Chung and Amy Noakes, also return, and the interplay among the three is even richer than in the previous entry. Vassell has wicked fun shifting narrators and timelines, and her satire remains sharp.”
—Publishers Weekly

Product Details

BN ID:	2940160498379
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	08/06/2024
Series:	Detective Inspector Caius Beauchamp , #2
Edition description:	Unabridged

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