A Dangerous Madness Michelle Diener 
Genre: Historical Mystery/Romance
Series: Regency London #3
Publication Date: May 19th 2014
ISBN: 9780987417695
Page Count: 326
Rating: ★★★★
Review Copy: ARC
Reviewed by: Lynsey
Synopsis: The Duke of Wittaker has been living a lie...

He’s been spying on the dissolute, discontented noblemen of the ton, pretending to share their views. Now he’s ready to step out of the shadows and start living a real life...but when the prime minister of England is assassinated, he's asked to go back to being the rake-hell duke everyone believes he still is to find out more.

Miss Phoebe Hillier has been living a lie, too...

All her life she's played by society's rules, hiding her fierce intelligence and love of life behind a docile and decorous mask. All it's gotten her is jilted by her betrothed, a man she thought a fool, though a harmless one. But when she discovers her former fiancé was involved in the plot against the prime minister, and that he's been murdered, she realizes he wasn't so harmless after all.

And now the killers have set their sights on her...

The only man who can help her is the Duke of Wittaker--a man she knows she shouldn't trust. And she soon realizes he's hiding behind a mask as careful as her own. As the clock ticks down to the assassin's trial, the pair scramble to uncover the real conspiracy behind the prime minister's death. And as the pressure and the danger mounts, Phoebe and Wittaker shed their disguises, layer by layer, to discover something more precious than either imagined–something that could last forever. Unless the conspirators desperate to hide their tracks get to them first.

REVIEW

A Dangerous Madness

Again this author manages to persuade me that, with excellent characterisation, and a thrilling plot, I don't NEED sex scenes. Oh, I might still WANT them, but they are not the be-all-and-end-all of what makes a good romance or an entertaining book. And like with the last book, Banquet of Lies, I still found myself fully involved, engrossed, and thinking about this novel well after I'd finished it, even without the standard quotient of 2.5 sex scenes beginning at precisely 50% in. Oh, yes, publishers. Don't think I haven't spotted the formula.

A Dangerous Madness's biggest selling point for me was the delicious deceptions the two main character were maintaining with everyone except each other. This gave them a unique bond and a closeness that was enchanting. As they put their heads together to try and figure out why someone is trying to kill Phoebe, and what that has to do with the recent murder of the prime minister, that closeness turns to something much much deeper, and it was a pleasure to read.

I thought all the stuff with the Prime Minister's murder was fascinating. A lot of it based on historical fact, with a bit of the author's own imaginings worked in. As the killer is known right from the get-go, the intrigue was found in working out the other major players - the puppet masters to his puppet, as it were- and it was well-written and exciting.

Another GREAT read - 4 Stars ★★★★
A copy of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.