{"id":595,"date":"2024-06-25T18:19:42","date_gmt":"2024-06-25T18:19:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/?p=595"},"modified":"2025-06-24T21:02:00","modified_gmt":"2025-06-24T21:02:00","slug":"murder-in-mayfair-d-m-quincy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/?p=595","title":{"rendered":"Murder in Mayfair – D.M. Quincy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Murder in Mayfair<\/em> is D.M. Quincy\u2019s (https:\/\/www.dmquincy.com\/<\/a>) debut novel in the Atlas Catesby series, and, while I started with high hopes from the enticing synopsis, they became increasingly lowered as I read on. This book just did not pull it all together for me.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Atlas Catesby, usually traveling the globe, has been stuck in London due to an injured foot. While he and his friend are at a pub, they hear that a man is selling off his wife to the highest bidder. Outraged and unable to stand for such cruelty, Atlas purchases Mrs. Warwick to save her from lecherous townsfolk. He brings her to stay with his sister, and, as he learns more about her, he begins to despise her husband more and more, while fighting a growing attraction to this strong woman. Unfortunately, after several argumentative meetings with her husband, Mr. Warwick is found murdered in his bed above his shop. Both Atlas and Mrs. Warwick become suspects, and he soon realizes that he\u2019ll have to take up the investigation in order to maintain their innocence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the premise of the book is quite interesting – saving a woman from being sold (sold!<\/strong>) by her husband – I don\u2019t think it quite carried off, and it was due to a couple of factors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, the presentation of the plot was not quite up to scratch. I think it was meant to be suspenseful, but I certainly never felt that atmosphere, and there were plenty of opportunities to create it. The important parts of the story were expressly told to us; there was no sense of layered plotting. The reader knew what was significant and what was not, which didn\u2019t lend enough air of a mystery and gave a fairly good idea as to who the culprit was.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, I was not a huge fan of Atlas himself, which was a surprise to me. He has his own sense of honor, is an attractive bachelor, has a troubled past, and wants to avenge the wrongs done to others. Sound familiar? Yes, you\u2019re right – it\u2019s almost identical to a lazy description of Sebastian St. Cyr. Knowing what a huge fan of his I am, I expected Atlas to be my next fictional crush. But, he didn\u2019t make the cut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can\u2019t say that it was any one thing about Atlas that put me off, but my issues with the storytelling didn\u2019t help. I feel that Quincy crammed too much into one story, for a start. Atlas\u2019 growing feelings for Mrs. Warwick throughout the book seem too fast for just having rescued her from an abusive marriage. He also contradicts himself a lot where she\u2019s concerned: one minute he\u2019s saying how he doesn\u2019t care for social convention and the next he\u2019s omitting things from the police because it would harm her reputation, and avoiding telling her things that might be distressing (IMO, the things could not have been as near as distressing as the abuse from her husband). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few of Atlas\u2019 friends mention that he\u2019s intelligent, but the most evidence readers see of that is that he likes to do puzzles and solved some minor mysteries when he was younger. All in all, not an impressive resume. Atlas is also very rash; he gets so <\/em>fired up over Mrs. Warwick that he comes to punches with people, organizes a duel, and threatens more than one person. If he learns something while investigating, he\u2019d rather go deal his justice than look at the bigger picture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of his wanting to protect women is because of his sister\u2019s death when he was younger, which still haunts him. Do I have a problem with this? No. Is it legitimate? Yes. However, again, it just wasn\u2019t expressed well. It could have been built upon in future books, embellished to drive home the point, or hidden as a surprise reveal later. Alas, it was just one revelation among many in a book that was too busy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Atlas is young, rebellious, troubled, disorganized, and curious, Sebastian St. Cyr is that and everything that Atlas isn\u2019t. He\u2019s a multilayered character with hidden depths that readers haven\u2019t reached yet, even at the 15th book. He\u2019s suave, debonair, and knows when to stop pushing. His code of honor and mind won\u2019t let a case rest, and sometimes he does go too far, but he makes sure of what he knows before taking action. He is not impetuous like Atlas, and that has saved him a lot of trouble. There\u2019s only room for one handsome, crime-solving rogue in 1800\u2019s London, and it\u2019s Sebastian St. Cyr.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Murder in Mayfair is D.M. Quincy\u2019s (https:\/\/www.dmquincy.com\/) debut novel in the Atlas Catesby series, and, while I started with high hopes from the enticing synopsis, they became increasingly lowered as I read on. This book just did not pull it all together for me.\u00a0 Atlas Catesby, usually traveling the globe, has been stuck in LondonContinue reading “Murder in Mayfair – D.M. Quincy”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":596,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[514,52,513,157,165,236,512,283,287,344],"class_list":["post-595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-atlas-catesby","tag-book-review","tag-d-m-quincy","tag-historical-fiction","tag-historical-mystery","tag-london","tag-murder-in-mayfair","tag-murder-mystery","tag-mystery","tag-review","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Murder-in-Mayfair.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=595"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":597,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595\/revisions\/597"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}