Tobias Campion Books in Order

Tobias Campion lets Judith Cutler step back into the Regency period, but these books are not all drawing rooms and polished manners. Tobias is a clergyman in a small Midlands parish, a decent man with damage in his past and more social conscience than comfort. He is not quite at ease with wealth, rank, or his own family, which makes him a good guide to a world where class lines are everywhere.

The first book, The Keeper of Secrets, sets that out clearly. Tobias has taken holy orders and accepted a living tied to a rich relative, but he is far more interested in the poor people around him than in pleasing the local powerful. He finds friends, and complications, in the village doctor, in Maria Beckles, and in his groom Jem, who is more than a servant and often wiser than his employer.

Tobias is thoughtful, but he is not mild.

That helps the series. He is a moral man, sometimes even a bit priggish, yet he is willing to ask awkward questions and to follow them farther than is comfortable. In Shadow of the Past, a drowned man may be linked to a missing heir, which sends Tobias beyond his parish and into a larger world. In Cheating the Hangman, the stakes are harsher still, with brutal crime and the terrifying speed of historical justice hanging over the investigation.

Cutler uses the period well. The books remember poverty, bad medicine, limited opportunity, and the precarious place of women and ex-soldiers in the social order. That gives the mysteries weight. The Regency here is not a costume party. It is a working, unequal world where people can disappear very easily if nobody important cares.

At the same time, the series is readable and companionable. Tobias has warmth around him, and his circle of friends gives the books a lived-in feel. Readers who enjoy historical mysteries often want both the puzzle and the world, and these novels pay attention to both.

If you want Judith Cutler on historical ground, with a lead who brings conscience as well as curiosity, Tobias Campion is a rewarding series to try.