I am very familiar with Mr. Morrell's work having read his work, followed the advice in his books on how to write and have had the pleasure of meeting him on a couple of occasions. His work never disappoints. His research is meticulous. With Inspector of the dead he has raised the game to a new level, writing in the style of Victorian England as well as about that time period. His Thomas De Quincey has a Sherlock Holmes quality to him - that character having been written in the 1920's - even though De Quincey precedes the Holmes era by a couple of decades - all in all I'm saying that the writing is elevated to a Conan Doyle level, allowing an already fine novelist to be ranked with those whose names we speak in literature a century later.
In this story line De Quincey and his daughter Emma, assist the local British constabulary in protecting Queen Victoria from one of several attempts on her life during a time when the British economy was being afflicted by the Crimea war. Pulling from actual historical facts, and using the political characters of the day, Morrell weaves a story for the ages and I hope that he continues in this Victorian vein as I am hooked again, as I am on every other series Morrell wrote.