Though the Heavens May Fall

In Thompson's quietly powerful puzzler set in 1856, Det. Constable Amos Hawke of Great Scotland Yard goes undercover to try to catch the killer of schoolteacher Edward Kernow and two excise officers who got too close to a smuggling ring in Cornwall. Amos, who officially is searching for his long-lost father, a former miner, lodges at the Charlestown cottage of Kernow's widow, Maisie, and her schoolteacher daughter, Talwyn. In the course of his investigation, Amos meets Captain Billy, a drunk who knew his father when they toiled at the Wheal Notter copper mine. Billy is reluctant to say much, however, for fear of brothers Hannibal and Pasco Davey, miners-turned-crooks who will brook no interference from snoops. Thompson (The Vagrant King) leavens this multilayered historical with a chaste, slow-burning romance (after a bumpy start) between Amos and Talwyn, who even helps her detective swain-to-be on a crucial ""spy"" mission to France.