Inspector Garrett Mystery Series: Book 1
Publication Date: May 3, 2026
London, 1923. American expat librarian Eden Brior thinks things are bad when she is accidentally locked overnight in the St. Cecelia’s Library vault with the charming and unreliable Simon Cross. Then she emerges to find the body of his estranged wife — a celebrated French actress — draped over a chair upstairs.
Detective Inspector William Garrett is methodical, quietly perceptive, and already fairly certain he has his man. He tells Eden firmly to go home and leave the detecting to the professionals. But how can she?
Racing to clear their names before Garrett closes the case, Eden follows the truth from the bright footlights of the London stage through the sleek drawing rooms of Jazz Age society, and into secrets that someone will kill to keep buried.
Steeped in the style of the golden age of detective fiction, The Harlot of St. Cecelia’s captures a London still glittering on the surface and shadowed underneath — where every drawing room hides a secret and every secret has a price.
Perfect for fans of Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs series.
The quiet of the library is shattered by murder in The Harlot of St. Cecelia’s by Darcy Graves.
Eden Brior is a London librarian who loves her library at St. Cecelia’s. Things are peaceful until she overhears an argument between Simon Cross and Isabelle Jalbet. Simon, for his part, agrees to help Eden close up the library, but when they get locked in the vault, things go from bad to worse.
When Inspector William Garrett arrives the next morning, they believe they are saved, until they see the body of Isabelle. With Simon the prime suspect, Eden has to work to clear his name. But Inspector Garrett does not believe this crime is cut and dry. With an inept Sergeant by his side and his supervisor breathing down his neck, Garrett must uncover the truth, or risk damning an innocent man.
I was impressed with this novel being Graves’ first. The story was interesting, and I thought her writing was great. The story was easy to follow and a very quick read. While I enjoyed the mystery, with this novel being the first in the series, I wanted to connect a bit more with the characters. I was pretty surprised that the story mainly followed Garrett, since the synopsis on the back seemed to imply Eden was the more central character. I wish that we could have seen more of Garrett as a person, as this is his series. Murder mysteries are everywhere. What keeps you interested in a series are the characters. So I hope in future installments Graves can focus more on character development and drawing us into their lives.
The Harlot of St. Cecelia’s is a great first installment of a tantalizing historical mystery series.
Darcy Graves grew up in Boston and holds an MA in English history and a BS in copywriting. A marketing content writer for over thirty years, she brings to her work a deep love of the golden age of detective fiction — particularly Agatha Christie and P.D. James — and the whimsy of P.G. Wodehouse.
Darcy lives in the Berkshires with her daughter, two ragdoll cats, and a very naughty terrier named Merial. The Harlot of St. Cecelia’s is her first novel.
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