Bellfield Hall

"This wonderful mystery is rich in suspense, period detail, humor and most of all characters. They come alive, and none more than Miss Dido Kent." —Louise Penny, #1 New York Times–bestselling author

1805. An engagement party is taking place for Mr. Richard Montague, son of wealthy landowner Sir Edgar Montague, and his fiancée Catherine. During a dance with his beloved, a strange thing happens: a man appears at Richard's shoulder and appears to communicate something to him without saying a word. Instantly breaking off the engagement, he rushes off to speak to his father, never to be seen again.

Distraught with worry, Catherine sends for her spinster aunt, Miss Dido Kent, who has a penchant for solving mysteries. Catherine pleads with her to find her fiancé and to discover the truth behind his disappearance. It's going to take a lot of logical thinking to untangle the complex threads of this multi-layered mystery, and Miss Dido Kent is just the woman to do it.

"Beautifully written. Characters one cares about immediately and a mystery which becomes more urgent with every page." —Anne Perry, New York Times–bestselling author

"Anna Dean has captured the tricky business of presenting a clever and resourceful woman, hedged in by a tight-laced society, who turns those limitations to her own benefit. Decorative and thoughtful, Bellfield Hall is a worthy addition to the historical crime tradition." —Laurie R. King, New York Times–bestselling author

"Dean's prose captures the spirit of nineteenth-century England, and in Dido Kent, whose keen powers of observation are matched by her sharp deductive reasoning, she has created an exemplary investigator." —Booklist