Historical Mystery Audiobook Review: C. S. Harris’s WHAT CANNOT BE SAID (Sebastian St. Cyr #19)

Written by Miss Bates

What_Cannot_Be_SaidFollowing my thoroughly satisfying read of Harris’s previous St. Cyr mystery, Who Cries For the Lost, I was pleased to receive an audiobook “arc” of the latest and nineteenth, What Cannot Be Said. It’s always a pleasure to spend time with Sebastian and Hero, with Paul Gibson and Alexi Sauvage, and Bow Street magistrate, Lovejoy. What Cannot Be Said is set against the background of a Napoleon afloat and in limbo on an English ship: whither Napoleon? Back to France and execution? At his request, to settle as an English gentleman farmer? Exile? By the end of the tragedy and horror comprising this St. Cyr mystery, Napoleon’s fate, a question at novel’s start, frames the narrative and arrives to its end when Jarvis brings news of whither Napoleon.

On Harris’s canvas, a mystery bringing to light the injustices and cruelty of a time and place that will lead to the 19th and 20th century’s revolutions: the horrors of slavery, the cruelty of child labour, the vulnerability of destitute women, sexual violence, and the mistreatment of the mentally ill. Not an easy narrative, but as always, a compelling one, and mitigated by the series’s readers’ affection for its moral core, Sebastian, Hero, Paul, Alexi, and Lovejoy. The details follow, thanks to the publisher’s blurb:

July 1815: The Prince Regent’s grandiose plans to celebrate Napoléon’s recent defeat at Waterloo are thrown into turmoil when Lady McInnis and her daughter Emma are found brutally murdered in Richmond Park, their bodies posed in a chilling imitation of the stone effigies once found atop medieval tombs. Bow Street magistrate Sir Henry Lovejoy immediately turns to his friend Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, for help with the investigation. For as Devlin discovers, Lovejoy’s own wife and daughter were also murdered in Richmond Park, their bodies posed in the same bizarre postures. A traumatized ex-soldier was hanged for their killings. So is London now confronting a malicious copyist? Or did Lovejoy help send an innocent man to the gallows?

Aided by his wife, Hero, who knew Lady McInnis from her work with poor orphans, Devlin finds himself exploring a host of unsavory characters from a vicious chimneysweep to a smiling but decidedly lethal baby farmer. Also coming under increasing scrutiny is Sir Ivo McInnis himself, along with a wounded Waterloo veteran—who may or may not have been Laura McInnis’s lover—and a charismatic young violinist who moonlights as a fencing master and may have formed a dangerous relationship with Emma. But when Sebastian’s investigation turns toward man about town Basil Rhodes, he quickly draws the fury of the Palace, for Rhodes is well known as the Regent’s favorite illegitimate son.

Then Lady McInnis’s young niece and nephew are targeted by the killer, and two more women are discovered murdered and arranged in similar postures. With his own life increasingly in danger, Sebastian finds himself drawn inexorably toward a conclusion far darker and more horrific than anything he could have imagined.

I think for the first time since starting to read this series, I didn’t enjoy it as much as previous volumes. Without spoiling, this was because the novel’s second half, as Sebastian nears the who- and whydunnit, Harris turns for resolution to the mystery to the revelation I most dislike: placing the mentally ill as the centre of acts of violence. Moreover, more than ever, Sebastian and Hero’s world, peopled by a few loving, honest friends, shrinks to that small moral circle: everything and everyone outside of it, sordid and cruel (with two exceptions: a fellow veteran and a brilliant young Black man in a society that will always see him as less than.)

Sebastian pursues the answer to the flabbergasting murder of a respectable mother and daughter: a mother who cared too much about vulnerable children, servant-girls, chimneysweeps, orphans, and a gifted, highly intelligent young women who got too close to colonial taboos. I don’t mean to be deliberately cryptic, but I’m trying not to spoil. As Seb pursues answers, with the now-heavily pregnant Hero calling on her connections to Lady McInnis’s charitable endeavours, with Lovejoy’s disorientation over the repeat crime MO of his wife and daughter and Gibson still struggling with his opium addiction.

If not for Hero and his friends, Sebastian is more of a lonely figure than ever: not lonely for company, or love (he is a loving pater familias now and it suits him), but isolated in his opinions, against the tide of his social and political milieu: disgusted with slavery and social conditions, enraged over the treatment of young, vulnerable women, raped by the likes of Basil Rhodes. There is a scene, near the end, where Sebastian is near vigilante in his anger. But I still love him and his entourage. I do think Harris lost her way with the mystery’s conclusions, but this may be more my own distaste for this tired mystery convention. Still, if there’s a St. Cyr #20, I’ll be there for it.

As for the audiobook’s narrator, Amy Scanlon is serviceable. I dislike exaggerated character voices and she keeps those to a minimum. In that vein, I didn’t like how she made Sebastian sound like a bored aristocrat, but I did like her sensitive and strong Hero. I am not, however, and never will be an audiobook fan: I like the intimacy of silent reading too much to ever make audiobooks more than an occasional reading experience.

C. S. Harris’s What Cannot Be Said, audiobook edition, is produced by RB Media and was released on April 23rd. I received an audiobook file, from RB Media, via Netgalley, for the purpose of writing this review. This does not affect the free expression of my opinion, which was “expressed” in the above review without the aid of AI.

18 thoughts on “Historical Mystery Audiobook Review: C. S. Harris’s WHAT CANNOT BE SAID (Sebastian St. Cyr #19)”

  1. In a series that’s already twenty books strong, the occasional misstep seems nigh unavoidable (I say, even as I grit my own teeth whenever the “and the villain was literally insane!” trope is used in any book).

    Speaking of which, did I mention that I only recently learned that the author was published in the late 1990s and early 2000s as Candice Proctor? I am pretty sure there’s at least one of those books in my print TBR somewhere…

    Like

    Reply

    1. Yes, I read C.S. Harris when she wrote as Candice Proctor. She also wrote a more contemporary series (3 books) as C.S. Graham which she dropped in favor of this series. I liked those three books as well.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  2. I guess I don’t care that much about the mystery, I follow the series for the characters, and the great historical atmosphere and sense of place, so I thoroughly enjoyed the book. I am not a fan of audio books either. Something in a book often triggers a thought, and my mind wanders to that, and then I realize I’ve missed the last minute or two. This happens over and over again, causing me to back up and listen again, so it’s a tedious process. Whereas when you’re reading, you just pause and then continue.

    Like

    Reply

  3. I dislike audio books, too. Please treat yourself to a paper copy of this for your keeper shelf.

    I loved this one, even with the unfortunate villainy motivation. I agree that this is one of her darker stories, but I appreciated getting to see deeper into Henry Lovejoy’s life. His anguish over the possibility that he had help sent an innocent man to the gallows was palpable. I also liked that Hero was an active investigator in this one, complete with qualms about questioning a child.

    There was one loose end that still bothers me–poor Thisbe! Her mother is dead, her father was an abusive husband and he’s now getting ready to marry his mistress. What fresh hell is her life going to be like? (I do this a lot with Harris’s minor characters. I’m still fretting about the ‘pure finder’ woman in Who Slays the Wicked, which was 5 years ago!)

    I had several “aha” moments while reading this. Damion Pitcairn*** was modeled on Joseph Bologne, le Chevalier de Saint-Georges, whom I had already encountered in another author’s work*. Likewise, when Devlin warns Pitcairn about Bow Street’s spy master Stafford, I had another a-ha moment, having already ‘met’ Stafford, courtesy of yet another author**. Oh my, my fictional London is getting very crowded!

    (*Penrose’s Wrexford & Sloan/Murder at the Serpentine Bridge, **Darcie Wilde’s Rosalind Thorne series)(***Pitcairn’s Spencians are heavily involved in the very real Cato Street Conspiracy of 1820–a little more history to look forward to…)

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. I try to read them while I’m cooking or baking, but I get distracted and have to rewind so often, I get bored! Same with listening in the car: gosh, attention to the road over the audiobook, who’d think that?!

      I thought the Hero-Thisbe scene was wonderful: even the okay narrator couldn’t help but let it come alive.

      I loved that Damion Pitcairn character, so much loss and tragedy in the story. I also liked to see how Sebastian’s moral core is often front and centre in his investigation. As for poor Lovejoy: I especially loved the scene with O’Toole’s mother. As always, so much of good in Harris’s book, though I can’t say it’s my fave. I was happy, however, to see Paul Gibson finally agree to Alexi’s help. And I reallly want to know if Sebastian will get his daughter?!

      Like

      Reply

  4. I had a very similar reaction to this book, although I am an absolute fan of the series. The mental illness trope just makes me tired. I have to chime in on the Candice Proctor books. I think Night in Eden, Beyond Sunrise, and September Moon are terrific. I didn’t;t care as much for Midnight Confessions set in New Orleans.

    Like

    Reply

  5. I enjoyed Whispers of Heaven but I think I’ve dnf’d more of her than I’ve read.

    I must tell you, Miss B, that a friend of mine told me today my blog is too meta, but he followed my blogroll to here and it was just what he wanted. 😂

    Like

    Reply

Leave a comment for Miss Bates ....