Historical
Gentlemen Behaving Badly
By Chrissy Dionne
Jul 1, 2008 - 5:29:39 AM

Out of desperation Mina Haliday accepted employment at a notorious bordello but not being of notable beauty she isn’t expected to service the clients. Instead she serves drinks in the bar and uses her vivid imagination and collection of erotica novels to compose letters to noblemen in order to lure them to the Pleasure Emporium.

Mina’s naughty correspondence is successful in enticing wealthy noblemen into the bordello for a night of illicit entertainment. However, her true goal is to find the man responsible for her father wrongfully being branded a criminal and deported to Australia’s penal colony. She just hadn’t anticipated her suggestive letters bringing her to the attention of the Chief Constable who’s investigating the murder of a government official.

Chief Constable Salter Lambrick has a murderer to catch. Since the victim was strangled with a leather whip and a suggestive invitation was found in his pocket it’s a distinct possibility that a trip to the bordello may provide the answers he seeks. What he gets instead are more questions. He quickly realizes that there’s more to these missives than meets the eye. The young woman responsible is one of the most fascinating creatures he’s ever met.

As Salter investigates Mina and just how she knows Lord Prescott he discovers that there’s more to her letter writing then simply luring wealthy noblemen to the Pleasure Emporium. In her bid to prove her father’s innocence she’s inadvertently become a liability in Salter’s murder investigation. The more time they spend together, the more complicated things become and it’s soon obvious that her father’s situation and the murder are somehow linked, but how and why?

I was pleasantly surprised by just how charming I found the storyline and characters in GENTLEMEN BEHAVING BADLY. Salter and Mina play off each other beautifully. They’re both wrapped up in solving their own cases and certainly didn’t expect to fall for each other. I loved the scenes that take place inside the bordello. Each scene is suggestively hot without being lurid. Michelle Marcos infuses plenty of humor and suspense into this historical tale which readers won’t want to put down.

GENTLEMEN BEHAVING BADLY is the first book in Ms. Marcos’s PLEASURE EMPORIUM trilogy. The first book, WHEN A LADY MISBEHAVES was released in October 2007. Hopefully readers won't have to wait too long for the last book, WICKEDLY AFTER EVER!