The Infidel Stain

This sequel to Carter’s The Strangler Vine (2015) finds unlikely pals—raffish inquiry agent Jeremiah Blake and gentlemanly but two-fisted Captain William Avery—back in Victorian London in 1841, three years after their sojourn in India. This time they partner up at the behest of prominent philanthropist Viscount Allington, who hires them to investigate the murders of two printers found butchered in their workplaces, where they printed pornographic and politically radical material. British actor Wyndham (best known from his role on the HBO series Rome) uses an educated, eager voice for the whodunit’s narrator, Avery, who naively expects the best from people. When he is exposed to evidence of man’s inhumanity, while following clues through the Dickensian impoverished city streets (at one point spying Dickens himself), Wyndham conveys surprise so effectively you can almost hear his jaw drop. A Putnam hardcover. (Mar.)