Murder on Rotten Row

I’ll admit, I picked this up expecting another cozy Regency romp with bonnets and teacups. *Murder on Rotten Row* slapped me awake by page three. The opening scene—a woman’s body dumped in an alley nicknamed for its decay—sets a tone that’s equal parts *Sherlock Holmes* and *Fingersmith*. Rose doesn’t flinch from the grimy details: the stench of the Thames at low tide, the way Vivienne’s gloves stick to her skin in the summer heat as she pokes through evidence. It’s a mystery that *feels* lived-in, not just plotted. Kevin E. Green’s performance is mostly stellar, though I’ll dock half a point for his occasional over-emphasis on Fitch’s folksy drawl—it borders on parody in a few early scenes before settling into a rhythm. But his Vivienne? Perfection. She’s not just clever; she’s *exhausted* by the idiocy around her, and Green nails that eye-roll-you-can-hear quality. The pacing stumbles slightly in the middle during a subplot involving a smuggled snuffbox (which feels like a detour to pad the runtime), but the final act’s reveal—tying the poison to a shockingly mundane domestic betrayal—lands with a gut punch. The audio production is clean, though I wished for more atmospheric background noise in the Rotten Row scenes to heighten the contrast with the stifling drawing-room dialogues. Still, this is a standout for listeners who like their historical mysteries with teeth—and a side of social critique.