Julian Kestrel is a fictional character in a four book mystery series by Kate Ross. The books in the series include Cut to the Quick (1994), A Broken Vessel (1995), Whom the Gods Love (1996), and The Devil in Music (1998). The Lullaby Cheat (1997), a short story featuring Kestrel, is included in the mystery anthology Crime Through Time, edited by Miriam Grace Monfredo and Sharan Newman. The novels and short story in the series are set in the English Regency era in Great Britain. Kestrel is a trend-setting dandy, similar in influence to Beau Brummel, who takes up detection as a response to boredom with the emptiness of society. Over the course of the series, it is revealed that Kestrel is the son of a talented actress, who died giving birth to him, and the younger son of a Yorkshire squire