Ashley Gardner

Ashley Gardner is the mystery-writing name of Jennifer Ashley, whose historical crime fiction follows damaged investigators through socially divided settings. A Death in Norfolk is the seventh Captain Lacey Regency Mystery and takes Gabriel Lacey to his neglected boyhood estate in September 1817. Accompanied by Lady Breckenridge, he confronts a missing young woman, strange objects in his ruined house, and a request from underworld figure James Denis that entangles him with a local squire. The 2011 novel shifts a series often associated with London streets into the marshes, windmills, and family memories of northern Norfolk. That homecoming makes inheritance personal as well as material: Lacey must investigate the district while reconsidering the father and property he left behind. James Gillies narrates the commercial audio edition. Gardner blends the mechanics of a historical mystery with an ongoing character study of a former cavalry officer living with injury, limited means, and an exacting sense of justice.