The Leaden Heart
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
"Thoughtful characterizations and a plausible, heartrending plot add up to a winner. Nickson stands in the front rank of historical mystery authors" - Publishers Weekly Starred Review
"Nickson's latest and perhaps finest is a breathless race for the truth from start to finish" - Kirkus Reviews Starred Review
When an old friend asks Superintendent Tom Harper for help, he finds himself drawn into a deadly web of intimidation, corruption and misery on the streets of Leeds.
Leeds, England. July, 1899. The hot summer has been fairly quiet for Detective Superintendent Tom Harper and his squad, until a daring burglary occurs at an expensive Leeds address. Then his friend and former colleague, Inspector Billy Reed, asks for his help. Billy’s brother, Charlie, a shopkeeper, has committed suicide. Going through Charlie’s papers, Billy discovers crippling rent rises demanded by his new landlord. Could these have driven him to his death?
As Harper investigates, he uncovers a web of intimidation and corruption that leads back to the mysterious North Leeds Company. Who is pulling the strings behind the scenes and bringing a new kind of misery and violence to the people of Leeds? Harper is determined to unmask the culprits, but how much blood will be shed as he tries?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Nickson's superlative seventh whodunit featuring Leeds police superintendent Tom Harper (after 2018's The Tin God) effortlessly blends an intriguing mystery with a portrait of the plight of the lower classes in that city in 1899. Insp. Billy Reed is bereft when his shop owner brother, Charlie, poisons himself after a new landlord buys the building housing the shop and doubles the rent. When Billy finds that Charlie was making regular payments to a notorious extortionist, Tom does some digging himself, only to run into a stone wall when he tries to ascertain the new landlord's identity. Worse follows. Charlie's widow, Hester, is threatened and then murdered in her home by someone who took pains to make the death seem natural. Meanwhile, Tom's wife, Annabelle, one of the city's few female Poor Law Guardians, looks into the drowning of two small girls by their dissolute father, who threw them into a canal after a workhouse refused to take them in. Thoughtful characterizations and a plausible, heartrending plot add up to a winner. Nickson stands in the front rank of historical mystery authors.
