Fortunately, Deanna Raybourn is not one of those authors who has a wonderful first book and then slowly goes downhill. Writing in the tradition of the detective stories that remain with the characters as time goes on, Raybourn's second book in the Lady Julia Grey series is quite as good as the first, with the same breathtaking fun and suspenseful storytelling as before. She reminds me of both Dorothy Sayers and Lauren Willig, in vastly different ways, of course, but her talent for writing mysteries with compelling, three dimensional characters has not abated and, were it not very close to my bedtime, I would be hauling out the third book and starting to inhale it as well.