The Bellingham Bloodbath
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- £8.99
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- £8.99
Publisher Description
Colin Pendragon's reputation as a brilliant detective is undisputed in Victorian London. But when murder strikes inside the closed ranks of Her Majesty's Guard, he must penetrate a wall of silence and secrecy to discover the dark truth. . .
After a captain in Her Majesty's Guard and his young wife are brutally murdered in their flat, master sleuth Colin Pendragon and his partner Ethan Pruitt are summoned to Buckingham Palace. Major Hampstead demands discretion at all costs to preserve the reputation of the Guard and insists Pendragon participate in a cover-up by misleading the press.
In response, Pendragon makes the bold claim that he will solve the case in no more than three days' time or he will oblige the major and compromise himself. Racing against the clock--and thwarted at every turn by their Scotland Yard nemesis, Inspector Varcoe--Pendragon and Pruitt begin to assemble the clues around the grisly homicide, probing into private lives and uncovering closely guarded secrets. As the minutes tick away, the pressure--and the danger--mounts as Pendragon's integrity is on the line and a cold-blooded killer remains on the streets. . .
"Colin has Holmes' arrogance but is dimpled and charming, while Ethan is a darker Watson. . .the relationship between the leads is discreetly intriguing." --Kirkus Reviews
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Aristocratic sleuth Colin Pendragon and his partner, Ethan Pruitt, take on two very different cases in Harris's entertaining second late-Victorian mystery (after The Arnifour Affair). When Capt. Trevor Bellingham of the Queen's Life Guard and his wife are murdered in their London flat, it's not entirely clear whether the Guard authorities want Colin to solve the crime or merely to assuage the public's fear and, perhaps, cover something up. Meanwhile, Lady Nesbitt-Normand knocks on Colin's door, utterly distraught by the sudden disappearance of her prize-winning bitch, Lady Priscilla Elizabeth Windsor Hanover Nesbitt-Normand. Despite the urgency of the other case, Colin agrees to try to locate her missing dog. The two story lines, neither of which is compelling on its own, nicely complement each other. Colin and Ethan are partners in both senses of the term as detectives and and as lovers and their tender, at times awkward, romance adds another layer to the novel.
