Alexander continues to improve in the fourth Lady Emily (but still, again, has a ways to go). This installment finds our oft-anachronistic heroine on her honeymoon (spoiler for those who haven't read the other books...sorry) in Constantinople but not on vacation from sleuthing. Mystery, it seems, has followed her there and makes its first appearance before she has even alighted from the Orient Express, when an aging British diplomat suspiciously falls ill--an overdose of sedatives--and has some official documents stolen. No sooner has he recovered than tragedy strikes again. A young harem girl is found murdered and is then discovered to be the diplomat's long-lost daughter, kidnapped as a small child. To uncover the truth (and potential link between the murder, poisoning, and theft), Lady Emily must navigate the forbidden world of the seraglio, where she must face foreign customs and her own (foreign) femininity. There is also the requisite omnipresent danger and Suspense.

I liked this almost as much as A Fatal Waltz. The mystery was the most satisfying one yet--complex, deftly plotted and paced, and clearly explained. I could have done without all the romance though. I know that this is a honeymoon book and, as such, one should expect there to be a good deal of hanky-panky, but does the author really need to document each and every amorous encounter, every canoodle in a corner? It's not that her descriptions were vulgar, because they weren't. Cliché, yes; graphic, no. They were just giggly and superfluous and distracted from the actual plot. I love a good bodice-ripping in its place (i.e. in a bodice-ripper). Perhaps I just don't like chick-lit? But I digress...

Alexander has also come a ways with Emily's character. Though she still suffers from being overly modern, overly self-confident, and overly viewed by all who meet her as Practically Perfect in Every Way, she's finally starting to be less reactionary and adolescent and more of a grown up. This is very much a book about parents and children. With marriage comes at least a discussion of maternity, and Tears of Pearl finds Emily wondering if that's something that she wants. If, after all her port-swilling, cigar-smoking flouting of convention, there aren't some parts of society and tradition that she desires. Perhaps these questions will be answered in the next book.

But now my head cold has subsided into lingering sinus headache, which means that it will soon be time to return to Weightier Tomes. So thanks, escape reading, it's been fun. :) Until pestilence strikes again...