Power Corrupts: Tales of Upton House Book Three

Hampshire,1817. Martin Bartholomew is a former army captain who inherited a country estate he didn't expect and a talent for attracting trouble he would happily do without. His new wife Marianne is considerably better prepared for both. When the senior partner of a respected London law firm is found hanged in his own home with a verdict of suicide accepted by everyone except his widow, Martin finds himself pulled into an investigation that begins with a financial fraud and ends somewhere altogether more dangerous. The conspiracy leads from the respectable offices of Solomon's solicitors to the candlelit rooms of Randall Road, a club whose members value their privacy above almost everything, and to powerful figures who would do much to avoid exposure. Alongside him, Andrew Ransley, a government agent whose real name is not Ransley, can pass himself off as almost anyone and enjoys it considerably; also Martin's valet Brian Jarvis, who just loves dangerous mischief and then Marianne herself, who attends the club in a capacity that was not her husband's idea and is not entirely to his comfort. Power Corrupts is the third novel in the Tales of Upton Park series; well-researched Regency fiction with warmth, wit, and a conspiracy that reaches to the highest levels of government. Consider it akin to Georgette Heyer with rather more peril and rather less dancing. New readers can begin here; those who have followed Martin from An Unexpected Inheritance will find the stakes considerably higher and the household only marginally calmer as the Upton estate continues to prosper.