The Cabinets of Barnaby Mayne

Hart moves from the closed world of the early 18th-century China of her “Li Du” novels to the shuttered and locked cabinets of eccentric Barnaby Mayne in early 18th-century London, and the quirky minds of the tight-knit circle of obsessive collectors, among whom Mayne was somewhat of an elder statesman until his untimely demise. While the mystery lies in not just whodunit but why and how it was done, the fascination in this atmospheric story lies with its two offbeat detectives, illustrator-turned-spy Meacan Barlow and her childhood friend, plant collector Cecily Kay. Both women exist on the fringes of the exclusively male world of competitive, combative collectors—which provides them with the knowledge and opportunity to figure out who murdered Mayne before an innocent man goes to the gallows.