The pace of this book is more sedate - in fact it takes about two-thirds of the story before it really starts to sizzle and simmer. New characters are introduced and chief among them that I loved was the pompous lawyer Yan Romello and his references to the 'Piano falling from the sky'. A paler shadow, earnest student but nevertheless two-dimensional. Julia Swain has a much larger role in this one but sadly, she still remains a character yet to strike a chord with me. Rod is playing it slow and steady with Elizabeth and John and I am pretty curious to know where the footsie dance is going to lead to. Some characters from the first book reappear here - most refreshingly, John Farthing of the International Patents Office. How she comes across an 'unseemly science' in uncovering this process and runs foul of some really vile guys forms the rest of the story. Raike and the missing ice is much deeper and murkier than appears at the surface.

To escape the clutches of law, Elizabeth flees to Derbyshire - along with some harrowing adventures on the way - and then realizes the mystery surrounding Mrs. And then there are these letters from Julia - now in the northern stretches of the Kingdom, trying to solve the mystery of missing ice-blocks from the ice-farming community of Derbyshire. And then things come to a head - with a new law passed that would extradite the immigrants from the Kingdom living now in the Republic - back home. Raike is hiding more than what she is letting on. Raike, Elizabeth egged on by Julia, decides to attend a volunteer march and the warning bells don't stop - as she suspects that Mrs. The second book opens with her witnessing the hanging of Alice Carter, the false duchess and then her protege Julia Swain - wanting to escape domesticity and marriage - signing up to volunteer for a new charitable organization in town. However the events of the first book forces her into days of seclusion, leading a quiet life on Betsy, her houseboat moored in the Canal. Now Elizabeth ( and her false identity twin brother, Edwin) poses as an intelligence gatherer - with quiet some reputation in closed circles. The first book, Bullet-Catcher's Daughter was a pretty fascinating and solid read - giving us Elizabeth a spunky heroine leading a double life back in the Republic having escaped the clutches of the notorious Duke of Northampton ( Still to make an appearance, guessing Rod's going to bring him in the finale!) back in the Kingdom who's had an arrest warrant out for her.

Unseemly Science by Rod Duncan