May 1, 2019
Set in London during the Victorian period, Clare's latest is engaging, dark, atmospheric, and, at times, quite charming and humorous. After her career as a maternity nurse in India ended distressingly, Lily Raynor returned to London. Seeking another career option, she opened her own private-investigation agency. After some initial modest successes, she now needs an assistant. Expecting to hire a woman, Lily is surprised when the best candidate is Felix Wilbraham, a young man with hidden talents and a rather mysterious past. The pair soon find themselves with two demanding cases. First, wealthy Lord Berwick asks Lily to find evidence that the actress his ne'er-do-well son plans to marry is an unsuitable wife for a future peer of the realm. Second, Ernest Stibbins is concerned about a potential threat against his wife, Albertina, a gifted medium. While he can't specify what the threat might be, he's terrified that his beloved?and much younger?wife is in grave danger. A clever plot, two engaging sleuths, plenty of period ambience, and a satisfying ending make this a fine choice for all mystery collections.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)
October 12, 2020
Early in Clare’s chilling sequel to 2019’s The Woman Who Spoke to Spirits, Georgiana Long, a teacher at Shardlowes, a girls’ boarding school in the English fens, arrives one winter day in 1881 at the London office of Lily Raynor, the proprietor of World’s End Bureau, a private enquiry agency. Three students have run away on separate occasions in recent months, and Georgiana, who doesn’t trust the police, wants Lily to investigate. Intrigued, Lily agrees to fill a temporarily vacant staff position at Shardlowes in order to do so. Lily has her lone employee, Felix Wilbraham, look into the school’s secretive benefactors, the Band of Angels, and he pursues a trail that leads to Scotland. Shifts between Lily’s inquiries and Felix’s help jack up the suspense. The two capable and self-assured leads stand in contrast to such stock secondary characters as the ambitious headmistress and the caretaker too fond of his whiskey. Descriptions of the bleak winter landscape of the fens (“the naked trees like skeletal limbs clawing up at the grey
sky”) lend atmosphere. Anne Perry fans will want to check this out. Agent: Sophie Gorell Barnes, MBA Literary (U.K.).
September 15, 2020
Clare's second foray into the Victorian past discloses new information about her unusual heroine. Private investigator Lily Raynor, who solved a complicated mystery in The Woman Who Spoke To Spirits (2019), is barely eking out a living for herself and her employee, Felix Wilbraham, when she's offered a job by Georgiana Long, a teacher at Shardlowes, a school for women in the Fens. The school is supported by the Band of Angels, a shadowy philanthropic organization founded by the MacKillivers, a pair of Scottish twins, one of whom has a mental illness. Several of the Shardlowes girls, many of them mentally or physically challenged, have gone missing from the school. Eager to avoid a scandal, Miss Long asks Lily to pose as a nurse at the school. Lily trained as a nurse, a profession she loved yet left after a mysterious incident in India. She goes to Shardlowes feeling a good deal of trepidation, but she fits in easily and soon begins to uncover disquieting facts about the missing pupils while Felix, with the help of his journalist housemate, tracks down the first girl to go missing, Esme Sullivan, whose body turns up in the water in Portsmouth. Traveling to Scotland, Felix discovers things that make him fearful for Lily, who's uncovered information that puts her in grave danger when another child is stolen. The experience that formed her in India makes her determined to reveal the truth. Mystery and social commentary combine in a heartbreaking and sadly relevant tale.
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