I like the premise of this series, each book following a female undercover operative for the Pinkerton Detective Agency, especially since the concept has its basis in actual history (I was a bit skeptical at first and actually looked it up!) Nevertheless there were a few things that held this novel back for me, most prominently a reliance on too many clichés, both in establishing the conflict and in building up the romance, too much time taken to explain the characters’ thoughts to the reader, and a plot that really just meandered for the first half of the book.