I started Penhallow once while I was having a bad day, almost immediately suspected that it would make things worse, and put it back on the shelf. This was before I read A Civil Contract, so I was surprised to see Heyer getting so serious.

I think of Heyer and Stout that way, too, with the caveat that Stout comes across as being just essentially a lot nicer than Heyer. That rule of comedy where you always punch up? Stout almost always adhered to it, but Heyer very rarely did, if ever. In particular, she usually comes off as very judgmental of middle- and working-class characters compared to rich ones, with the exception of a few heroines who happened to have aristocratic blood to offset their evidently-regrettable backgrounds.

Maybe this is weird given their prevailing genres; or maybe it's not, given the whole "mysteries are fantasies of justice" theory. The Wolfe books definitely are.