Firstly do not pay any attention to the cover. It's awful. I'm not sure what they were trying to do with it, but it bears next to no relation to the book behind it.
My wife had read this and really enjoyed it, so when I came to E in this particular reading challenge I decided to give it a whirl.
It's fairly hard to categorise. It's rather steampunky, although I don't recall seeing an airship. It is set in Victorian times in London, although it's an alternate Victorian age, with the young queen marrying a charming commoner, rather than Albert, and as a consequence gave the vote to women much earlier than happened in our reality, and they play larger more responsible roles in society in general.
There's a paranormal aspect to it, in that the central character Alex (full name Alexandrina, after the Queen) is a reader. This means that she can partially read people's minds. Werewolves and seers also make appearances in the book.
It has a mystery. Alex works for the police force in a way and uses her talents to solve murders, which is what the title refers to, her latest case concerns a hanged man.
There's also some romance between Alex and the by the book, but upstanding Lieutenant Brooks, who is assigned to Alex for most of the case in the book.
It was quite a lot of fun with plenty of quirky characters and an interesting look at an alternate reality. It occasionally put me in mind of Gail Carriger's The Parasol Protectorate, although not as funny and The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences by Philippa Ballantine and Tee Morris, not as steampunky.
The ending indicates that it's the first book in a series, although no sequels have yet appeared.
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