Dangerous to Know: A Novel of Suspense

Written by Tasha Alexander

Narrated by Justine Eyre

Set in the lush countryside of Normandy, France, this new novel of suspense featuring Lady Emily Hargreaves is filled with intrigue, romance, mysterious deaths, and madness.

Returning from her honeymoon with Colin Hargreaves and a near brush with death in Constantinople, Lady Emily convalesces at her mother-in-law's beautiful estate in Normandy. But the calm she so desperately seeks is shattered when, out riding a horse, she comes upon the body of a young woman who has been brutally murdered. The girl's wounds are identical to those inflicted on the victims of Jack the Ripper, who has wreaked havoc across the channel in London. Emily feels a connection to the young woman and is determined to bring the killer to justice.

Pursuing a trail of clues and victims to the beautiful medieval city of Rouen and a crumbling chateau in the country, Emily begins to worry about her own sanity: she hears the cries of a little girl she cannot find and discovers blue ribbons left in the child's wake. As Emily is forced to match wits with a brilliant and manipulative killer, only her courage, keen instincts and formidable will to win can help her escape becoming his next victim.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Jan 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781977365071

Tasha Alexander

TASHA ALEXANDER is the author of the New York Times bestselling Lady Emily mystery series. The daughter of two philosophy professors, she studied English literature and medieval history at the University of Notre Dame. She and her husband, novelist Andrew Grant, live on a ranch in southeastern Wyoming.

Reviews for Dangerous to Know

[jennybeast · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Still enjoying this series -- love the unexpected plot twists and turns, and the Norman setting of this installment of the adventure. Colin is a chump. I hope he gets his crap together -- after the last couple of books, I'd be happy enough for Kallista to return to widowhood.

[auntie0nanuuq · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

From Goodreads: "Set in the lush countryside of Normandy, France, this new novel of suspense featuring Lady Emily Hargreaves is filled with intrigue, romance, mysterious deaths, and madness.Returning from her honeymoon with Colin Hargreaves and a near brush with death in Constantinople, Lady Emily convalesces at her mother-in-law's beautiful estate in Normandy. But the calm she so desperately seeks is shattered when, out riding a horse, she comes upon the body of a young woman who has been brutally murdered. The girl's wounds are identical to those inflicted on the victims of Jack the Ripper, who has wreaked havoc across the channel in London. Emily feels a connection to the young woman and is determined to bring the killer to justice.Pursuing a trail of clues and victims to the beautiful medieval city of Rouen and a crumbling château in the country, Emily begins to worry about her own sanity: she hears the cries of a little girl she cannot find and discovers blue ribbons left in the child's wake. As Emily is forced to match wits with a brilliant and manipulative killer, only her courage, keen instincts and formidable will to win can help her escape becoming his next victim."This held my interest and with the exception of Emily's mother-in-law, who was rude & condescending, and two young people of the victim's family (both more than obnoxious), I liked the characters (even the bad guy).This was certainly better than the previous one I read..... This author just isn't an even writer, maybe if she took more time between books rather than writing to meet deadlines her work would be more copacetic. I am not giving up yet.

[bookhookgeek · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

More of a 2.5 star rating. I'm getting tired of Lady Emily's moping around and feeling that everyone is against her. Also, the villian's motive seemed to come out of nowhere. Still, this book was better than the previous one in the series, Tears of Pearl.

[weareallmad · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Although a stranger to the Norman countryside, even I knew a dark pool of blood under a tree was not something a tourist should expect to see during an afternoon ride.

[jbarringer-2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I know this series is historical fiction and thus the fact that the sleuth being a woman from the aristocracy is a bit unusual already, but her husband still really bugs me. Lady Emily was a widow already and could have been just fine on her own, so while I understand that she thinks she loves her second husband, I have to wonder if she needs him. He seems to understand that she is an independent, intelligent person who does not need him to control and discipline her, but then it also seems that he has simply taken all that under advisement and might change his mind at any time and take away all her freedom as if she is a pet, not a human being. Being treated as inferior would already be annoying for a woman like Lady Emily, but never knowing from one day to the next where you stand with your husband and which of your freedoms are most illusory because of him would be even more annoying, the uncertainty that amounts to being unable to really trust your husband thanks to his well-demonstrated preference for retaining full dominance over you. I kept wishing throughout the book that Emily would get fed up and divorce him or at least leave him, scandal or not. Still, the murder mystery was good in this book, and the bad guy was in the story, not just thrown in at the end (I consider introducing a brand new bad-guy character at the end cheating on the part of mystery writers). I'd give this book 3.5 stars, but it was decent enough aside from Emily's husband that I rounded up to 4 for this site.

[murderbydeath · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I liked this book the least of all 5 books so far. The series presents a heroine with modern ideas in Victorian times. She's rich of course, smart, independent and has a husband who supports these scandalous ideas of equality. They investigate mysteries together, along with one or two friends they've made along the way. It's been fun, mostly. Until this one. This book would have been about 30% shorter and less irritating if someone had just given Emily a flog at the beginning of the book and told her to have at herself. Events in the previous book have given her a rude awakening about what equality might mean–rightly enough–but she positively wallowed throughout this book and didn't begin to resemble the character I'd enjoyed previously. Colin too was something of an ass. So, the story lumbered and dragged for me. I disliked pretty much everybody, and I was certain who the killer was. But then, towards the end, the last 25%, the story got exciting. I still pretty much disliked everyone, but events picked up pace dramatically and I was quite swept away in the excitement of it all. Add to that I was totally wrong about who the killer was (although I get points for proximity) and the book raised itself up to 3 stars instead of the two I had planned to give it. Here's hoping everyone pulls their sticks out in book 6.

[riverwillow · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Emily and Colin are staying with Colin’s mother, Anne Hargreaves, in Normandy while Emily recovers her strength following the events at the end of the last book. Unfortunately Emily and Anne do not get on well and this causes tension in the house, which is only increased when Emily stumbles across a woman’s body bearing wounds similar to those inflicted by Jack the Ripper on his victims. Of course Emily and Colin get drawn into the investigation.This is an interesting instalment in the series, Emily and Colin have both been wounded by the events in Constantinople, but react very differently. As we see from her diary entries – a really nice device – Anne Hargeaves is just as independent and forthright as Emily, but is unable to appreciate Emily’s virtues and so worries for her son. No Margaret this time, but Cécile and Sebastian both put in an appearance and assist Emily with her investigations and provide support to her as she tries to deal with the repercussions of Constantinople. As always there’s a historical context to the story, Monet reappears and they meet Maurice Leblanc who’s creation of Arsène Lupin is inspired by his encounters with Sebastian. The identity of the victim and her family circumstances seems to be the key to solving the murder, and its here that I found the story to stretch just beyond the bounds of credibility, the family are just too much, especially her siblings – I don’t want to give too much away here and spoil the plot. But having said that there were a nice number of twists and turns to the plot to keep me satisfied and the resolution to the case is scarily plausible.

[philae_02 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the fifth book in the Lady Emily series, and it picks up where we left off. Lady Emily and her new husband, Colin, are now resting in France at her mother-in-law’s while she recovers further from her attack. But the necessary R&R doesn’t go according to plan. A young woman is brutally murdered near the house. The authorities are suspecting Jack the Ripper, or at least a copycat, and Emily insists on solving the murder, much to Colin’s chagrin. The novel reunites some favorites – Cecile and Sebastian – and all help Emily fend off the ghosts that seem determined to haunt her.

[liabee · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The best of the bunch so far, with a plot line that is followable and yet twists, relationships that are followable and yet twist and deepen, and all the period panache that rings so true (and could sound so risible in lesser hands).

[divinemissw · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Wonderful read. Mystery, suspense, love and adventure, this book has it all... and then some.

[wagner5sarah35 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Lady Emily, still recovering from Constantinople, must now contend with her disapproving mother-in-law, a protective husband, a friend struggling with madness, and a a vicious killer whose crimes resemble those of Jack the Ripper. Emily spends much of this novel trying to find her footing after her misadventures in the previous novel and at times displays some uncharacteristic behavior. However, Emily does fall back into character and manages to uncover an unsuspected murderer.

[vernefan · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Dangerous to Know by Tasha Alexander (Book five in the Lady Emily Ashton Mystery series)Three Murders and a Little Girl GhostTasha Alexander’s fifth novel in her Lady Emily Ashton mystery novels was for me the best in the series yet. It has been fun to watch the author’s writing and story complexity evolve and improve to becoming one of the best in the genre of Victorian Era murder mysteries.Dangerous to Know picks up immediately where the previous book left off. Emily and her dashing husband Colin Hargreaves are recuperating from their tragic honeymoon in Istanbul, where Emily was shot and lost their unborn baby in the midst of investigating a murder. Colin thinking nothing but rest at his mother’s estate would be just the ticket for Emily to mend, soon is proved wrong, when while out riding Emily finds the dead body of a young woman brutally stabbed to death. This event definitely was not what she needed and spins her into feeling emotions of insecurity, doubts of her marriage, and rivalry between herself and her new mother-in-law who seems to have nothing but disdain for Emily and her apparent weaknesses. Recognizing that the way out of her weakened physical state and depressed mind was to get back full swing into her work of solving crimes, she and Colin band together again to solve the mystery of the slain young girl which of course begins again another tale of adventure, mystery, romance and tragedies. The author dips her pen into the inkwell of combining madness in an insane asylum, jealousy between bitter siblings, a doctor turned mad scientist, and a gothic ghost story quite curious that has Emily seeing little girls with blue ribbons crying in the night. I thought Dangerous to Know had much more substance than previous plots in the earlier books, and that this installment’s story was a lot more complex with multi-levels of intrigue that all tie together in the end. I continue to enjoy the romance between Emily and Colin, their chapters of interesting criminal detection, along with a host of regular background characters that enhance the pages of each book. Especially our beloved Sebastian Capet, the suave thief with panache. His personality grows with each book and seems to be a growing player that will have more of a part in the future which could become interesting when in the next book he will have a larger part in the lives and exploits of Lady Emily and the Queen’s Spy Colin Hargreaves.Two thumbs up once again for Tasha Alexander who continues on the path to success with her series that serves up a fabulous concoction of murder and mayhem with romance, adventure and heartwarming characters you come to love!