Daughters of Night
Laura Shepherd-Robinson
Synopsis
'This is right up there with the best of C. J. Sansom and Andrew Taylor' -- Amanda Craig
'Top-drawer historical fiction meets compulsive, just-one-more-chapter crime' -- Caz Frear
From the pleasure palaces and gin-shops of Covent Garden to the elegant townhouses of Mayfair, Laura Shepherd-Robinson’s Daughters of Night follows Caroline Corsham as she seeks justice for a murdered woman whom London society would rather forget . . .
Lucia’s fingers found her own. She gazed at Caro as if from a distance. Her lips parted, her words a whisper: ‘He knows.’
London, 1782. Desperate for her politician husband to return home from France, Caroline ‘Caro’ Corsham is already in a state of anxiety when she finds a well-dressed woman mortally wounded in the bowers of the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. The Bow Street constables are swift to act, until they discover that the deceased woman was a highly paid prostitute, at which point they cease to care entirely. But Caro has motives of her own for wanting to see justice done, and so sets out to solve the crime herself. Enlisting the help of thieftaker Peregrine Child, their inquiry delves into the hidden corners of Georgian society, a world of artifice, deception and secret lives.
But with many gentlemen refusing to speak about their dealings with the dead woman, and Caro’s own reputation under threat, finding the killer will be harder, and more treacherous, than she can know . . .
This is right up with the best of C. J. Sansom and Andrew Taylor . . . A real treat, for readers of literary, detective and historical fiction
Amanda Craig, author of The Lie of the Land
Here’s one where the pages turn all by themselves and the plot doesn’t let you go
Diane Setterfield, author of Once Upon a River
Shepherd-Robinson’s ingenious plotting, eagle eye for detail and evocative prose picked me up and dropped me in the underbelly of Georgian London. Like all the best historical fiction it makes the reader think as much about the way we live now as then
Erin Kelly, author of He Said/She Said
