{"id":5375,"date":"2026-06-18T01:00:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T01:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/?p=5375"},"modified":"2026-06-18T15:57:59","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T15:57:59","slug":"a-case-of-fear-and-favor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/?p=5375","title":{"rendered":"A Case of Fear and Favor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>How lucky we are to have crime fiction that is as rich in history as it is full of riveting prime suspects.<\/strong> At the center of this narrative is Sir Gabriel Ward KC, longtime denizen of the Inner Temple, \u201cthat cloistered little area of London in which the lawyers live.\u201d While Ward\u2019s evenings are rarely spent in the Temple\u2019s library\u2014his own office suffices\u2014the sudden discovery of the librarian\u2019s corpse, spread out on his desk, and the disappearance of a priceless medieval manuscript are enough to set Ward on edge. Add two suspects, Jitendra Shah, an Indian law student; and Lesley Roberts, the shocking assistant librarian, who happens to be a woman, rare in librarianship at the time. Can both be responsible? In addition, of all things, Gabriel has decided to take on the representation of a sweetshop in distress while London prepares for the coronation of Edward VII. Miraculously, several narrative threads come together to resolve a most vexing, and pleasurable, story.\u2014<em>Brian Kenney<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How lucky we are to have crime fiction that is as rich in history as it is full of riveting prime suspects. At the center of this narrative is Sir&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5374,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[295],"class_list":["post-5375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review","tag-historical-fiction-mystery-detective-amateur-sleuth-fiction-mystery-detective-cozy"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/formidable\/4\/Fear-400x400.png","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/formidable\/4\/Fear-400x600.png","author_info":{"display_name":"Brian Kenney","author_link":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/?author=1"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}