Of Hoaxes and Homicide, Anastasia Hastings's well-plotted second entry in the Dear Miss Hermione Mystery series, follows bluestocking Violet Manville (secretly writing as agony aunt Miss Hermione) as she unravels the secrets of a dangerous cult. After solving a mystery some months ago (Of Manners and Murder), both Violet and her younger half sister, Sephora, are bored. But when Sephora's friend Margaret joins a cult, and her mother writes to Miss Hermione in desperation, seeking help, Violet seizes the chance to investigate the mysterious Children of Aed. Left behind in London, Sephora (alongside the sisters' redoubtable housekeeper, Bunty) tries to assuage her worry about her friend by chasing down several promising leads. What the sisters uncover will surprise them both--especially when one of the cult members is murdered.
Narrated mostly by Violet, with occasional interludes in Sephora's voice, the plot mixes melodrama (including the adventures of a penny-dreadful author who styles himself Count Orlando) with a bit of romance (each sister gets her turn) and old-fashioned sleuthing. Violet, though given to self-congratulation and reflections on her travels through India with her late father, nevertheless proves a competent sleuth: observant, suspicious, meticulous, and (mostly) stealthy. As she investigates the cult members (hoping to prove Margaret is no murderer), she uncovers a nest of secrets and lies--but discovering which of those secrets led to murder is a more difficult task. Violet, assisted by mysterious American agent Eli Marsh, eventually solves the case, but the fun is in the puzzle-solving and the moments of high drama along the way. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams