Description de l’éditeur
One morning before dawn in the stables of her country estate, Lady Truelove meets a violent death in an encounter with a dangerous horse. Classified as “death by misadventure,” this appears a gruesome accident. But Scotland Yard Detective Joe Sandilands suspects foul play—a misgiving he is struggling to separate from his personal grievances toward Sir James Truelove, who is Lady Truelove’s widower and the influential academic patron of Dorcas Joliffe, whom Joe one day hopes to marry.
Joe enlists old friend and former constable Lily Wentworth to trail James, and finds an ally in a fellow police officer familiar with the Truelove estate. But as the investigation yields surprising secrets about one of England’s most powerful families, Joe discovers how little he knows about not only the gilded lives of the moneyed, but also his relationship with Dorcas. Is Joe prepared to risk a future with the girl he loves to uncover the truth behind Lady Truelove’s death?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
British author Cleverly's excellent 12th whodunit featuring Scotland Yard Assistant Commissioner Joe Sandilands (after 2013's A Spider in the Cup) offers her sleuth a number of genuinely baffling crimes to solve. In June 1933, Sir James Truelove, a government minister expected to become the next Home Secretary and thereby Sandilands's new boss, asks him to help retrieve a pair of family portraits that are up for sale at a London auction house. Truelove hopes that the presence of a uniformed copper will deter other bidders. Despite misgivings about whether he's been given the full story, Sandilands complies and lands the artwork. Meanwhile, an anonymous letter writer advises Sandilands to look beyond the official verdict of "death by misadventure" of a titled lady killed by a dangerous stallion in the stables at Truelove's family estate in Cambridge three months earlier. A 16-year-old girl's suicide by drowning and an unreported theft, both dating to 1908, raise the stakes. Cleverly manages to pull everything together logically, with more than a few surprises.
