Beasts in Velvet is the third book in 'The Vampire Genevieve', which is odd, considering it doesn't have the vampire Genevieve in it. Actually, she shows up for two pages - the main characters pass her in the street, and exchange small-talk. And that's not even the most egregious problem with placing this particular novel third in the vampire Genevieve series - since the second book actually spoilt the ending of the third - twist and all - as it's set after this one. But, putting that aside lets review Beasts in Velvet in it's own right, as the standalone it should be. The novel starts off pretty generically - There are murders happening in the capital city of the Empire, Altdorf. Despite claims by the blurb, the main character is an Elector - a powerful princely position, second only to the emperor - who fears his brother is the murderer, and has come to the capital to either prove his innocence, or stop him if his fears are warranted. The elector is a likeable enough character and serves well to keep the story moving, but there is little else to praise here. The detective story has little mystery - it's not a whodunnit, with the reveal of many small clues that have to be cleverly put together. Actually, the book is very, very clear who it wants you to think 'dunnit' from the get-go. As a result, it's pretty clear there is going to be a twist, and the first suspect is a herring. The 'They obviously dunnit' detective story is told on a pretty interesting backdrop - a supernatural fog rolls into the city, turning the population mad, and there are some agitators stirring up an anti-aristocratic revolution. What's more, some of the leaders of the revolution are actually religious zealots devoted to the chaos gods, and they have allies within the palace walls. If this is sounding like a far more interesting plot than the main plot of the book, that's because it is - and it's a shame this wasn't the main idea in the book, because true to The Vampire Genevieve style, the climax of the subplot ends up having very little impact on the actual plot, and makes even less sense - an ardent revolutionary filled with bloodlust who happens to be a deamon lord blessed by a god of chaos, is (spoilers) killed by ... an old man with the leg of a chair. Okay? And then comes the inevitable but bizarre twist, which aside from it being so obvious there was going to be one, has no foreshadowing whatsoever. There was no sudden clicking into place of facts and clues, no seeing old evidence and events in a new light - it was just a bizarre epiphany - literally, after confronting the presumed killer, one of the characters suddenly realises who the real killer was (Presumably because they had to in order to move the plot along), and it makes absolutely no sense. Even though we are given a nice clear motive and method ad hoc, it doesn't seem to square with the rest of the book - it feels like the whole 5th part (The book is divided into 5 parts, each containing many chapters) was tacked on at the end, and the twist is far more a 'And this is how it is' than a satisfactory payoff from clues, tricks, and foreshadowing. The ending would have been far more satisfying if the killer had been who it was hinted to be all along - although straightforward, it would have made more sense, been far more meaningful to all the characters involved, been more emotionally compelling, and ' no twist' may have actually been the best possible 'twist' at the end, given how much the expectation of a sudden twist there was.