From the journal of Eric Peterkin, dated 27 February 1925:

I miss my Usual Armchair.

The chief advantage of a job evaluating manuscripts for publication is that it can be done anywhere; and until two months ago, I’d do it from the comfort of an armchair in the Britannia Club lounge: cheery fire at my heels, everyone coming and going, bar ready to supply me with gin and tonic … Now I’m club secretary, I’ve got my own office and by God is it dull. Spring is in the air, beautiful women all over London are shedding their winter coats, and I feel like I’m once again stuck in some damned dugout in Flanders, staring over the parapet at a line of trees far beyond my —

Damn the War. Let’s move on.

Colonel Russell’s daughters-in-law were in today for their usual Friday lunch. Lady Alice in full mourning, as much a memorial to the late Russell brothers as the brass plaques bearing their names on the club’s Roster of the Fallen. Madam Eliot glittering with jewels, Lucy Russell looking like a little schoolgirl — who’d ever guess we’re the same age? And of course, Miss Flora Grace. The Colonel never joins them, though they’re supposed to be his guests; and we turn a blind eye to this bending of the rules because we all reserve our good eye for the lovely Miss Flora Grace.

I will say this about Colonel Russell: it was jolly decent of him to step in as acting president, at least until the general meeting and elections in April. And ever since he loudly announced to the whole club that I was a capital fellow who’d do marvellously as club secretary, and haven’t there always been Peterkins at the Britannia … I’ve not had so much as a funny look over the fact that Mum was Chinese and I take after her rather than Dad.

Is this what it feels like to be “English enough”? I shall have to ask Penny. She took after Dad enough that some people don’t realise she’s half-Chinese. Perhaps she’ll tell me what a terrible time she has, trying to prove that she’s Chinese enough. Not that I could ever imagine that being an issue!

One final note before I set this journal down: It’s been ages since I last saw Avery. Some friend I’m turning out to be! Just like the matter of my Usual Armchair, it used to be that I’d stop by the Arabica coffee house every other evening, find Avery in his Usual Booth, and perhaps even let him read my fortune in the cards. (He knows I think it’s nonsense, but if it makes him happy, who am I to refuse?) Next week, perhaps. We’ve already seen the worst that could happen — Benson’s murder last October — and I doubt if lightning will strike twice even if I took an evening away from the Britannia Club.

A PRETENDER’S MURDER
Series Name: An Eric Peterkin Mystery, Book 2
Genre: Historical Mystery, 1920s
Release: February 2026
Format: Print, Digital, Audio
Purchase Link

The year is 1925. A labyrinth of roads and rails spirals out from the bones of a nearly forgotten settlement. Londinium. Once the far-flung edge of the vast Roman Empire, it is now the seat of a greater one.

Few have given more for the Empire than Colonel Hadrian Russell. Robbed of his four sons by the Great War, he now holds court as the acting president of the Britannia, a prestigious soldiers-only club in London. But when the Colonel is shot and thrown out the club’s front window, it seems the shadows of the Great War may extend further than previously thought.

Lieutenant Eric Peterkin, newly installed secretary at the Britannia, finds himself thrust into the role of detective after Scotland Yard points fingers at friends he knows are innocent. But is the true murderer an unknown spy? Or a recently resurfaced friend of the Colonel’s dead sons? Or is it one of the Colonel’s four widowed daughters-in-law, who by all appearances paid him complete devotion?

Accusations from personal betrayal to wartime espionage mount among the suspects as Eric’s investigation draws him back to scenes and sites of a war he’s sought to leave behind. From the greening fields of Flanders and the springtime streets of Paris to the sterile wards of a Swiss sanatorium, and back to the Britannia itself, Eric finds that even myths leave behind bones.

Meet the author
Christopher Huang was born in Singapore with a terminal case of anglophilia. After serving his two years of National Service, he moved to Montreal, Canada, to study architecture at McGill University. He now resides in Calgary, where he has yet to find a proper jar of Bovril. His taste for the fair-play puzzle mysteries of the 1920s and 1930s is reflected in his choice of both subgenre and setting.