The first book in this series, Death Below Stairs, was a SBTB Book Club Pick, and I was so excited to receive the sequel. This is easily one of my favorite new series, and I adore so much about it. Happy for me, just about everything I love about this world is present in the new book, and I’m immensely satisfied, making all the Good Book Noise one might expect. I read it while walking on the treadmill, and both days I was annoyed when my time was up, which never happens.

Kat Halloway, a very talented cook and amateur sleuth, is working in the same household as in the first book, though with relatives of the original family from the first novel living above stairs. Lady Cynthia is still living in the house, and still chafing at the limitations of being an unmarried woman bound by social expectations. Kat acquires a new assistant, Tess, through mysterious intervention (again) from the elusive and charming Daniel McAdams (again). I was concerned Tess would be a Cockney caricature early on, but she developed into an excellent character, both as a kitchen assistant eager to learn, and as a clever and people-wise co-investigator. Tess initially is rather mercurial: surly and then overwhelmed with emotion that she has a place in a house where she’s fed and safe. Kat sees a little of herself in Tess, and in this book we learn more about Kat’s background and a bit of Tess’s as well.

The mystery in this book was not as mentally tempting for me as the developing cast of characters who solve it. One of Lady Cynthia’s friends is accused by her husband of stealing paintings and selling them to pay her gambling debts, and Lady Cynthia asks Kat to help her by figuring out who is really taking the paintings off the wall. Kat solves that mystery easily, but a larger ring of thefts is connected to that one, and the puzzle grows to include more people, and more danger. The mystery of the first book was much more immediate and emotional for Kat; this puzzle is more distant, and doesn’t involve Kat and the people she cares about until the very end, so the impact was less visceral. But even though I wasn’t as invested in the mystery, I was very invested in reading about Kat, Daniel, Cynthia, Tess and others working within their respective worlds to solve it.

There is also plenty more of the deeply tempting food porn I loved from the first book. Kat is first and above all a cook, so she’s always prepping, creating, or cleverly reusing ingredients for the meals for everyone in the household. She’s also very thoughtful, writing down her recipes and ideas after a meal, and reading cookbooks in her spare moments. (I would read an entire book of Kat reading other people’s cookbooks). The behind-the-scenes detail of the household is also one of my favorite parts, not just because there’s ample competence porn (enough to send up two tureens of it to the dining room with plenty left over for the staff) but because the way in which the servants work together, even across households, builds lovely friendships and networks that allow the reader to learn more about Kat and her character.

As much as I love the mystery puzzle and the people, I also love the complex and subtle ways that class and status are upheld and upended by the characters. Daniel shifts between jobs, accents, and appearance easily enough to blend into myriad situations. Kat exists in a somewhat lonely in-between state, above the other servants, but certainly not above stairs with Lady Cynthia. Her friendship and camaraderie with Lady Cynthia causes some minor trouble for Kat, but she’s very loyal, and won’t turn away from a friend. Kat is also aware that she came from much lower classes, and that she’s risen very high in her lifetime at a young age, in part because of her intelligence and her cooking skill. As a result, she looks after everyone within arm’s reach in different ways, always trying to help in large or small measures.

Kat also has a secret, which I won’t spoil in case you haven’t read the series – and I am telling you, if you like historical mystery with incredibly fun characters and loads of competence porn, you’ll treat yourself if you read this series. You can start with A Soupçon of Poison, a novella, and then Death Below Stairs. Trust me, it’ll be a wonderful reading experience. While the mystery wasn’t the strongest element of this book, the charm and cleverness of all the characters mixed with the thoughtful exploration of the relative freedoms and visible limitations of being a woman in various class levels at that time make this one of my favorite series to re-read and to recommend.