Agatha Christie meets a Regency-era Upstairs, Downstairs, with comedy-of-manners interludes, in Miss Morton and the Spirits of the Underworld, the second novel in Catherine Lloyd's capable and cunning Miss Morton series. Set in 1838 London, this follow-up to Miss Morton and the English House Party Murder finds Lady Caroline Morton still smarting: following a family scandal that rendered her penniless, she was forced to sign on as companion to well-to-do widow Mrs. Frogerton. Miss Morton still feels as though "she existed in a netherworld--neither a servant nor a worthy guest." Wanting to protect her employer from "gifted flimflammers," Miss Morton accompanies Mrs. Frogerton to a séance hosted by Madam Lavinia Dubois. Miss Morton is sufficiently unnerved by Madam's apparent knowledge of Miss Morton's own past that she later agrees to a private meeting with the medium, initiated by her friend Dr. Harris, who considers the woman "a fraud and a charlatan." They arrive at Madam's house only to find her dead.
Dr. Harris becomes Great Scotland Yard's prime suspect, leaving his vindication to Miss Morton and Mrs. Frogerton. The women have an agreeable Watson-Holmes dynamic, with Mrs. Frogerton displaying an animated eccentricity as she veers between playing detective and seeing her marriage-minded daughter through "the London Season." If Lloyd's ending isn't quite worthy of the adept plotting that precedes it, Miss Morton and the Spirits of the Underworld nevertheless succeeds as a diverting caper and a whip-smart skewering of a social system that leaves unmoneyed women with little agency. --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer