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A Fatal Waltz takes Tasha Alexander's Lady Emily series to the Continent, with a country-house party at the estate of an English politician where the host turns up dead and the investigation widens into the anarchist underground of late-19th-century Vienna. Alexander is paying attention to the political backdrop more carefully here than in the previous two books.
Lady Emily is fully herself by this point in the series: independent, intellectually curious, and willing to put herself in genuinely uncomfortable places. The Vienna sections are some of the best writing in the series so far, with Alexander attentive to coffee-house political conversation and the way the city moves at the turn of the century.
The romance plot with Colin Hargreaves continues to evolve at a satisfying pace. Four stars. Read in series order.
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