Ashley Gardner has 16 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 2 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.6★ across 17 ratings. The most-rated is The Hanover Square Affair.
The Hanover Square Affair
Summary
London, 1816 Cavalry captain Gabriel Lacey returns to Regency London from the Napoleonic wars, burned out, fighting melancholia, his career ended. His interest is piqued when he learns of a missing girl, possibly kidnapped by a prominent member of Parliament. Lacey's search for the girl leads to the discovery of murder, corruption, and dealings with a leader of the underworld. At the same time, he struggles with his own disorientation transitioning from a soldier's life to the civilian world, redefining his role with his former commanding officer, and making new friends--from the top of society to the street girls of Covent Garden. Book 1 of the Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries. This is a full-length novel.
©2003, 2011 Jennifer Ashley (P)2014 Jennifer Ashley
A Covent Garden Mystery
Summary
Captain Lacey stops to assist a young woman in the market at Covent Garden, and realizes to his astonishment that she is his daughter, Gabriella. Lacey then discovers that his estranged wife and her paramour, a French officer, have journeyed to London at the invitation of James Denis to dissolve her marriage to Captain Lacey. Meanwhile, a Bow Street Runner and a man from the Thames River Police have asked Lacey to help them look into the disappearances of "game girls" from Covent Garden. The magistrates aren't interested in their fate, but perhaps Lacey can learn a thing or two. Lacey agrees and recruits old friends to help. But when the goings-on in Covent Garden put his daughter in grave danger, Lacey's crusade turns personal. He will do anything, and call in any favor from anyone, in order to protect his own Gabriella.
©2006, 2011 Jennifer Ashley (P)2016 Jennifer Ashley
The Glass House
Summary
On a cold January night in 1817, former cavalry officer Captain Gabriel Lacey is summoned to the banks of the Thames to identify the body of a young woman. When Lacey looks at the pretty, dead young woman, cut down too soon, he vows to find her murderer. Lacey's search takes him to the Glass House, a sordid gaming hell that played a large part in the victim's past, as well as to gatherings of the haut ton and the chambers of respectable Middle Temple barristers. Lacey uncovers secrets from the highborn and the low, finds himself drawn deeper into the schemes of the crime lord, James Denis, and explores his tentative new friendship with Lady Breckenridge.
©2004, 2011 Jennifer Ashley / Ashley Gardner (P)2014 Jennifer Ashley / Ashley Gardner
A Regimental Murder
Summary
London 1816: After rescuing a lovely woman from an attempted robbery, Captain Lacey discovers that she is the widow of a colonel who'd been accused of murdering an English officer during the Peninsular War. Lydia declares that her husband was innocent and that she knows the true culprits' identities. Intrigued, Lacey, along with his friend, Lucius Grenville, begins to investigate. He soon finds himself mired in scandals of the past and surrounded by murders that are very much in the present. Book 2 of the Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries.
©2004; 2011 Ashley Gardner / Jennifer Ashley (P)2014 Ashley Gardner / Jennifer Ashley
A Body in Berkeley Square
Summary
London, 1817 A Bow Street Runner summons Captain Gabriel Lacey to a Berkeley Square ballroom where a young dandy was stabbed to death during a society ball. The prime suspect: Lacey's former commander, Colonel Brandon. Instead of denying the charges, Colonel Brandon allows himself to be arrested and claims, to Lacey's shock, that the lady he'd stayed protectively near at the ball is his mistress. Lacey realizes that he is the only person not convinced of Brandon's guilt - all present, including Brandon's wife, believe that Brandon committed the murder. Colonel Brandon's reticence to tell the truth proves to be Lacey's greatest obstacle in his race against time to prove Brandon's innocence. As Lacey's relationship with Lady Breckenridge moves forward, his hunt for evidence to clear Brandon uncovers dark secrets that go back to the Peninsular Wars and involve the origins of Lacey's and Brandon's private battle.
©2011 Jennifer Ashley (P)2015 Jennifer Ashley
A Death in Norfolk
Summary
September 1817 Captain Gabriel Lacey travels with Lady Breckenridge to his boyhood home in northern Norfolk only to discover mysterious happenings in and around the Lacey estate. A young woman, cousin of an old friend, has gone missing, strange objects appear in Lacey's ruined house, and the dark windmills on the marshes keep pulling Lacey to them. The underworld criminal, James Denis, uses Lacey's visit to Norfolk as an opportunity to have Lacey deliver a message to a local squire. A simple task - but one that lands Lacey squarely in international theft and murder. Lacey learns more about Denis's past, and finds himself joining forces with Denis to flush out a brutal killer and save the one person about whom Denis admits to caring.
©2011 Jennifer Ashley / Ashley Gardner (P)2016 Jennifer Ashley / Ashley Gardner
A Mystery at Carlton House
Summary
Captain Lacey is drawn into affairs of the highest in the land when his friend Grenville is asked by the Prince Regent to look into odd happenings in his lavish abode of Carlton House. Objects of value have gone missing, paintings and sculpture have been moved, and some of the staff have reported strange sounds and movements in the shadows. The Regent and his cronies suspect ghosts or other malign spirits. The Bow Street Runners have a more human suspect for these doings, and Captain Lacey is asked by a Runner to help him prepare a case against the man they’ve already arrested. But the suspect is under the protection of James Denis, a leader of crime, which brings Lacey head-to-head with him once more. Opposing Denis can be dangerous, and so can dividing the loyalties of the men who work for him. Meanwhile Lacey has his family to worry about - his daughter, his wife, and new members who have joined. In addition, he’s not convinced that either Denis or the Runners have the right idea in this matter. He must produce the correct answer before Denis loses his patience or one malevolent Runner in particular makes Lacey answer for the crimes.
©2017 Jennifer Ashley, Ashley Gardner (P)2019 Jennifer Ashley, Ashley Gardner
A Disappearance in Drury Lane
Summary
Late December, 1818: As Captain Gabriel Lacey prepares for his upcoming wedding, his former neighbor, Marianne Simmons, comes to him about an actress friend who's gone missing. Lacey agrees to help look for the actress, little realizing that the search will pit him against men who think nothing of abduction, assault, or sending incendiary devices to the innocent. At the same time, Lacey's personal life is changing, and his time for investigation is frequently and frustratingly interrupted. He is also commanded by a new Bow Street Runner to assist in bringing down James Denis, a criminal with whom Lacey now has complicated ties. Lacey must help or else risk hanging alongside Denis. The search for the actress takes Lacey from elegant assembly rooms to the backstage of the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, where he finds darkness in all corners. Lacey's life and honor are constantly challenged as he tries to settle into his new life, until he realizes he can follow no code but his own. The eighth book in the Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries.
©2012 Jennifer Ashley (P)2017 Jennifer Ashley
Murder in Grosvenor Square
Summary
Captain Gabriel Lacey begins Spring 1818 preparing for a duel. But while he focuses on the affair of honor, darkness, greed, and death stalk the streets of London and bring tragedy to a family Lacey has grown close to. With the aid of Lucius Grenville, London's most famous dandy, and Brewster, a ruffian employed by an underworld criminal, Lacey's investigation takes him from the elegant mansions of Grosvenor Square to the squalid lanes of Seven Dials, to houses that practice a highly illegal trade, spelling ruin and possible hanging for those caught within. Lacey, once again, comes into the sphere of James Denis, a crime lord, when what appears to be a simple crime of hatred turns out to be far more complex. Book nine of the Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries
©2014 Jennifer Ashley / Ashley Gardner (P)2017 Jennifer Ashley / Ashley Gardner
The Alexandria Affair
Summary
Captain Gabriel Lacey accompanies famous dandy Lucius Grenville to Egypt, a land that Lacey has long anticipated visiting. Lacey travels there for more than a simple holiday, however - James Denis has tasked him with finding an "object" in Alexandria and procuring it, whatever the cost. The task does not turn out to be so simple. Locating what Denis wants in the teeming city proves difficult, sending Lacey and Grenville exploring tombs and temples down the Nile. Lacey must deal with treasure hunters, a shadow following him and his friends, murder, and missing his new family as he explores the exotic country he has so longed to see.... Audiobook 11 in the Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries series.
©2016 Ashley Gardner & Jennifer Ashley (P)2018 Ashley Gardner & Jennifer Ashley
The Thames River Murders
Summary
Captain Lacey is asked by Peter Thompson of the Thames River Police to help him investigate a cold case - the murder of a woman found near the docks Thompson patrols. The investigation was sidelined, considered unsolvable, but Thompson has long wished to find her killer. Captain Lacey joins him in the hunt, entering a part of society that is closed to outsiders. Meanwhile, he must deal with his daughter's debut and more developments in his new domestic life, including an anonymous blackmailer who's out to ruin Lacey any way he can. Book 10 of the Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries series.
©2015 Jennifer Ashley, Ashley Gardner (P)2018 Jennifer Ashley, Ashley Gardner
The Sudbury School Murders
Summary
England, 1817 Captain Lacey takes a post as a secretary at the Sudbury School in Berkshire, a school for sons of the wealthiest merchants and bankers in England. As soon as he arrives, Lacey discovers that he's been hired for more than his letter-writing skills. A series of disturbing pranks have kept the school in an uproar, and the headmaster expects Lacey to discover the identity of the prankster. The problems intensify when a groom from the school's stables turns up dead in a lock of the nearby canal. A Romany is arrested for the murder, and Lacey is the only person who believes him innocent. As Lacey works to discover what happened, he gets drawn into the secrets of Marianne Simmons, the actress who lived upstairs from Lacey in London. Marianne swears Lacey to silence, which puts a new strain on his friendship with Grenville. Meanwhile the intrigue surrounding the murder becomes as murky as the waters of the canal itself and puts Lacey and Grenville into deadly danger. The Sudbury School Murders won the RT Book Reviews Reviewers Choice Award for Best Historical Mystery.
©2011 Jennifer Ashley / Ashley Gardner (P)2015 Jennifer Ashley / Ashley Gardner
Death at Brighton Pavilion
Summary
When Captain Gabriel Lacey finds himself standing over a dead body in Brighton Pavilion, bloody sword in hand and no memory of how he got there, he immediately fears he is a murderer. The dead man is Colonel Hamilton Isherwood, a man Lacey clashed with after the battle of Salamanca in Spain seven years before. As Lacey tries to piece together the events of the previous night, he discovers he’d promised to help a Quaker gentleman find his missing son, and that the Society of Friends might know far more about his strange night out than anyone else. With the help of Brewster, Grenville, and his wife, Lacey races to save himself from arrest, even it means bringing to light painful scandals from his own past.
©2019 Ashley Gardner/Jennifer Ashley (P)2020 Ashley Gardner/Jennifer Ashley
Murder in St. Giles
Summary
London, 1819. When Brewster, my bodyguard, comes to me about a murder of a pugilist - and what’s more, says his wife has summoned me - I must hasten to St. Giles to find a killer before Brewster is arrested for the crime. This is made difficult because Donata's late husband’s odious cousin has materialized to try to wrest her son into his care. After all, seven-year-old Peter is a viscount, and his cousin wants to get closer to the title. But how close? If Peter’s life is in danger, I must remain, but Brewster risks hanging for the death of his wife’s brother-in-law. He’s done too much for me to turn my back on him, but the devil if I’ll let the Breckenridge cousin get his clutches on Peter. It will take all my perseverance, and a few wiles, to plow through these difficulties. In the meantime, I meet a runner who teaches me about crime and punishment in this enlightened age, and Brewster’s old trainer, who made him the excellent pugilist - and thief - he is today. This is the 13th book in the Captain Lacey regency mysteries. This is a full-length novel.
©2018 Ashley Gardner/Jennifer Ashley (P)2019 Ashley Gardner/Jennifer Ashley
Blood of a Gladiator
Summary
Leonidas, champion gladiator of Rome, is set free from the games by a mysterious benefactor who grants him freedom, a place to live, and a servant - Cassia, a scribe - to look after him. But the benefactor is only so generous - Leonidas must pay his own way and Cassia’s, which means hiring himself out. The sharp-witted Cassia quickly lands him a post as a bodyguard, escorting a retired senator to Ostia. The trip soon turns deadly, as Leonidas and Cassia find themselves squarely in the middle of intrigue that reaches from the slums of the Subura to the Palatine Hill and the emperor Nero himself. Book one of the Leonidas the Gladiator Mysteries.
©2020 Ashley Gardner/Jennifer Ashley (P)2020 Ashley Gardner/Jennifer Ashley
The Necklace Affair and Other Stories: Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries
Summary
In "The Necklace Affair", Captain Lacey agrees to help a society matron discover what has become of her expensive diamond necklace and to clear her maid, who has been arrested for its theft. Lady Clifford declares that the rival for her husband's affections has stolen the necklace, but Lacey soon realizes that the problem is not so simple. He quickly becomes enmeshed in scandal and past secrets and recruits Grenville and Lady Breckenridge to assist him. As he investigates, he finds himself competing with the underworld criminal, James Denis, for the necklace's retrieval. In "The Gentleman's Walking Stick", Captain Lacey is asked to retrieve a walking stick, which embroils him in an affair of theft, deception, and betrayal. In "The Disappearance of Miss Sarah Oswald", Lacey hunts for a missing young woman, learning more about a family's sordid secrets than he wanted to know.
©2011 Jennifer Ashley / Ashley Gardner (P)2015 Jennifer Ashley / Ashley Gardner